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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

How Connecticut Became An Abortion Safe Haven

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Daily News

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2022

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the wake of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating that Roe v. Wade will soon be a thing of the past, some states are rushing to fortify the right to an abortion within their borders. Nowhere has gone as far as Connecticut, though, which has expanded the field of people permitted to perform abortions and created legal protections for anyone who aids in the procedure. But will it make a difference when abortion will likely soon be outlawed in half the country?  Guest: Matt Blumenthal, State Representative for Connecticut’s 147th District. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I think that the holidays feel like frozen noses. I love walking with the dog for long periods of time.

0:10.0

Hopefully it's snowing and you've got to wrap up warm. So I think a frozen nose is a sweaty armpit

0:15.0

because your wrapped up so warm but then you're climbing hamps and heath and you get to the top

0:20.0

and you're like, and then you can see the breath but then your nose is still freezing to touch.

0:25.0

Join in every sip with Red Cups now Back at Starbucks.

0:37.0

Back in April, Connecticut's House of Representatives gathered to debate and vote on a whole bunch of legislation.

0:44.0

There was a bill about service animals, a bill establishing a supermarket food donation program,

0:50.0

and then there was the bill about abortion.

0:53.0

And with that, the clerk please call House Calendar 383.

0:56.0

A young representative named Matt Blumenthal got up to talk about it.

1:00.0

Representative Blumenthal.

1:02.0

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For almost 50 years, the Supreme Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade

1:07.0

has protected an individual's fundamental right to decide whether and when to be pregnant.

1:13.0

The bill, Blumenthal, described was unlike anything I'd ever heard before.

1:18.0

It looked ahead to what the world might look like if Roe vs. Wade gets overturned by the Supreme Court.

1:25.0

It imagines women suddenly traveling great distances for abortion care.

1:30.0

And it takes seriously the idea that states like Texas might suddenly find themselves at odds with states like Connecticut.

1:39.0

Other states around the country have started to pass laws deputizing private citizens

1:45.0

as essentially vigilante bounty hunters to sue any person or organization,

1:50.0

physician, nurse, clinic, friend, even the Uber driver,

1:55.0

who assists an individual in obtaining an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

2:01.0

People have been calling this bill a safe haven law for abortion.

...

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