Proposed Law Would Make Rhode Island Sanctuary State For Abortion and “Gender-Affirming Care”
Taken altogether, if passed, the new law will essentially make abortion and transgender healthcare providers an untouchable class of defendants when sued from another state.
Earlier this month, Rhode Island became one of the latest states to consider legislation that would make it a safe haven for abortion and gender-affirming care.
California was the first to establish itself as a sanctuary state for transgender patients in September 2022, staking out its opposition to other states that banned gender-affirming care. That set the stage for the ongoing battle royale this past year between red states seeking to ban or set restrictions on such care and blue states determined to protect it.
Now Rhode Island has entered the fray, with twin bills (SB2262/HB7577) sponsored by Senator Dawn Euer and Representative John G. Edwards to safeguard access to both abortion and gender-affirming care.
According to GLAD, the legislation is backed by ACLU of Rhode Island, Center for Reproductive Rights, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), RI Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, Protect our Health Care RI, TGI Network of Rhode Island, the Womxn Project, and Youth Pride.
If passed, the “Healthcare Provider Shield Act” will insulate Rhode Island doctors and their patients from civil and criminal complaints filed in other states that restrict these surgeries and treatments.
Would-be out-of-state litigants will have to think twice before suing Rhode Island doctors and their patients under the proposed new law.
If they do, they’ll risk retaliatory lawsuits. The law creates a cause of action for tortious interference with legally protected healthcare activity. So if someone from another state sues a Rhode Island doctor over performing an abortion or transgender surgery, that doctor can sue them back for damages and attorneys’ fees.
And when they try to gather evidence to support their cases, they’ll hit a brick wall. The new law forbids courts and public agencies from cooperating with their requests for discovery by:
- Blocking discovery in out-of-state hostile litigation — The proposed legislation says a Rhode Island court may not order someone here to comply with out-of-state requests for discovery, e.g., testimony, documents. And a judge may not issue a subpoena in connection with hostile litigation. Nor can it order wiretapping or eavesdropping related to abortion or transgender care. The same goes for search warrants. — That means health care providers and their patients will not have to share information with out-of-state law enforcement agencies or litigants from states where abortion and transgender care are not protected.
- Forbidding any public agency from cooperating with interstate investigations or abortion or transgender care.
- Prohibiting extradition of non-fugitives engaging in legally protected healthcare activitity — For example, in the case of a doctor sued from another state, unless the accused doctor was physically present in the state that seeks to have him extradited and then fled to Rhode Island, the authorities are not allowed to surrender him to that state.
The law also protects doctors from losing their licenses or medical malpractice insurance coverage over their abortion or transgender care services.
Certain lawsuits are exempt from the proposed legislation. Those that would otherwise be valid under existing Rhode Island law are not considered “hostile litigation”:
(iv) Hostile litigation does not include a lawsuit or judgment entered in another state that is based on conduct for which a cause of action would exist under the laws of this state if the course of conduct that forms the basis for liability had occurred entirely in this state, including any contract, tort, common law, or statutory claims.
But such claims—for example, a standard malpractice claim—might be hard for lawyers to prove once they come up against all the barriers to discovery set out in this new legislation, whose purpose, after all, is to thwart out-of-state challenges.
Taken altogether, if passed, the new law will essentially make abortion and transgender healthcare providers an untouchable class of defendants when sued from another state.
And for now, it signals to Democrat voters and donors their lawmakers’ commitment to abortion and gender-affirming care.
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Comments
Literal death cult
And child molestation cult. Make no mistake, this is just another step in their goal of eventually normalizing pedophilia.
What is it about New England these days? Are they morally tired, or has their environment become oxygen deprived?
Incest.
Another example of how d/prog one party control leads directly to Cray Cray. That’s the key takeaway; all those who support the d/prog politically are making a conscious decision to put woke weirdo policies into effect as result of their choices. They do so despite the many existing examples of overreach, excess, anti liberty policy positions and general disdain for anything close to civic norms/traditions.
Maybe but we get lots of free stuff
I forgot the /s tag.
Didn’t need it. SMH
“general disdain for anything close to civic norms/traditions.” most Americans have a moderate view on abortion i.e. it should be reasonably legally accessible. NY is a reaction to red states removing themselves from civic norms and traditions. You want a more rational legal landscape reinstate roe v wade
Its child abuse, should be illegal. Like encouraging delusional child they can fly, giving them paper wings, and pushing them off the roof. This will be remembered as dark era in medicine, like lobotomy. Its no reversible, like “changing teams”. Its permanent life long mutilation.
As the smallest state RI would be a perfect sanctuary for the mentally and morally healthy.
It sounds good to me. Ohio can’t regulate behavior in Rhode Island even for Ohio residents, a barrier that you don’t want broken.
Rhode Island votes for it or not, that’s up to them.
Why is killing babies and mutilating children so important to Democrats? Maybe a better question is why anyone would want to be a Democrat Oh and they’re anti-Semites too
Allow me look into my infallible crystal ball and predict what’s going to happen absent federal intervention: Homo-activists working in public schools in red states are going to set up a modern-day underground (child abuse) railroad to escort these groomed kids to ‘sanctuary states’ where they will be given puberty-blockers or even irreversible surgeries all without parental permission and there’s no recourse for the parents, either in criminal law or civil law.
What will then happen – again, predictably – is parents will take the into their own hands and I suspect they’ll get some help from other like-minded parents. This is going to get dark, quick.
The first thing red states should do is greatly strengthen their kidnapping laws to specifically address this kind of out-of-state travel. Any help a person gives to a kidnapper should be viewed as an accessory-after-the-fact crime.
I’ll just put this here:
Article IV § 1 Full Faith & Credit Clause
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
Source:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-4/section-1/overview-of-the-full-faith-and-credit-clauseAnybody with a carry permit knows that these are just fine-sounding words on paper.
Came here to point this out as well. The Full Faith and Credit Clause should render the Rhode Island law unconstitutional.
“…the Womxn Project…”
“What is a womxn?”
So when female genital mutilation is brought up, those that practice it have a perfectly good excuse. They do LESS than what the “modern” West does.
its a great idea and the exact reason the scotus correctly made their ruling
it is a states issue
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, The Eunuch State.
State Motto: “Come have your balls snipped here, kid.”
At least, there’s some truth in advertising, there. And just think of how great their male sopranos will be in the future.
Just “Rhode Island” now. They officially changed their name, because “Plantations” was… well, you know. Even though there are still a ton of actual ones in Hawaii.
Which state becomes the first sanctuary state for gun rights? Protections for gun manufacturers and dealers from frivolous lawsuits?
State? Kansas, I believe, in 2013. But it was all virtue-signaling. When a Kansan relied on the state’s promises, it welched. Not only did they not have his back in court, the bill’s author all but said the defendants should have known they were guinea pigs.
Thank God Rhode Island is so small.
What they lack in size, they make up for in nanny/welfare mentality.
As a Catholic, it’s disheartening to see states with such strong Catholic populations (RI, NY, NJ…) becoming so woke that they protect things that are objectively evil. What’s wrong with these people?