Bill to shield doctors who provide abortion, transgender care passed in R.I. Senate

The bill now heads to the House, where Majority Floor Manager John G. “Jay” Edwards, a Tiverton Democrat, has introduced a companion bill. If the legislation is enacted, Rhode Island would join 12 other states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, with similar laws.

“Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, we have seen an unprecedented level of attacks on health care providers, on reproductive rights, across the country,” Euer said on the Senate floor. “A number of states have passed hostile actions to try to cross state boundaries and go after health care providers in other states.”

In 2019, Rhode Island enacted the Reproductive Privacy Act to protect abortion rights in the state in case the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And in 2022, the high court overturned that landmark decision, ending the constitutional right to an abortion that had existed for nearly 50 years.

The Healthcare Provider Shield Act would protect health care providers who are licensed and physically practicing in Rhode Island from arrest and extradition, subpoena for testimony and documents, and professional disciplinary action taken against them in other states. It also would prevent Rhode Island public agencies, including law enforcement, from cooperating with out-of-state investigations into legally protected health care in Rhode Island.

Euer, who served as the Marriage Equality RI deputy campaign manager, noted Thursday’s vote came 11 years to the day after Rhode Island legalized same-sex marriage.

“I think Rhode Island has been on the leading edge of these conversations and protections,” she told the Globe. “So it was a really meaningful moment for me, having gotten my start in Rhode Island politics with the Marriage Equality campaign.”

But now the country is witnessing “an extremely hostile and harmful attack and villainization of our transgender community members,” Euer said. She noted that the Westerly School Committee has moved to diverge from the Rhode Island Department of Education policy on transgender students.

“I think it’s incredibly important, especially in light of some actions in Westerly, that we are standing solidly shoulder to shoulder with our transgender community members, and making sure that the legal health care that is evidence-based that they will get from Rhode Island providers is protected,” Euer said on the Senate floor.

Also, she noted that Texas’ attorney general tried to get a Seattle hospital to hand over records regarding gender-affirming treatment potentially given to children from Texas. (The request was dropped as part of a lawsuit settlement.)

“This seems like the next frontier of attacks,” Euer said.

No one spoke in opposition to the bill on the Senate floor. But “no” votes were cast by the Senate’s five Republican senators — Jessica de la Cruz, Anthony P. DeLuca II, Elaine J. Morgan, Thomas J. Paolino, and Gordon E. Rogers — plus two Democrats, Roger A. Picard and Leonidas P. Raptakis.

Senator Pamela J. Lauria, a Barrington Democrat who works as a primary care nurse practitioner, spoke in support of the bill, saying, “As a health care provider, we are trained to treat the person in front of us with evidence-based, medically appropriate care to the best of our abilities.”

Barriers to that goal usually include cost and education, but now politics are becoming a barrier, Lauria said.

“It may seem a little strange that I would complain about politics, but politics does not belong in my exam room or any health care provider’s exam room,” she said. “That politics has taken the form of science denial and conspiracy theories. But now it has taken the form of trying to criminalize the very care that we are trained to give.”

Lauria said the bill would help maintain Rhode Island’s health care workforce. “If we want to keep our providers here in Rhode Island and recruit more providers here to Rhode Island, we have to protect the job that they are trained to do,” she said.

The Senate has received dozens of messages supporting the legislation, including letters from Attorney General Peter F. Neronha and Secretary of State Gregg M. Amore, both Democrats.

“In Rhode Island, family doctors, OB-GYNs, and other clinicians and their patients must be secure in their ability to deliver and receive essential, standard-of-care medical treatment — treatment that has come under an alarming, discriminatory assault in more than a dozen states,” Neronha wrote.

“Abortion is health care,” Amore wrote. “Gender-affirming care is health care. The providers of this health care should not fear for their safety or for potential legal repercussions in Rhode Island. This is especially true in the face of the coordinated, national push led by anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ+ organizations to attack reproductive health care and gender affirming care and the health care professionals who provide it.”

Dr. Heather A. Smith, president of the Rhode Island Medical Society, said, “We need the Healthcare Provider Shield Act to ensure Rhode Island remains a state where clinicians want to practice, and so that physicians can continue to provide our patients with quality, compassionate, and essential care when they need it.”

And the Rhode Island chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics backed the bill, saying, “Out-of-state laws banning access to essential medical care takes away people’s freedom to make important medical decisions for themselves and their families, informed by guidance from trusted providers, and replaces it with the wishes of politicians. That’s not the Rhode Island way.”

Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.