Boston Globe, May 4, 2022 | By ||| Activists in Rhode Island were long told they were “overreacting” to the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Now they’re looking to help women on Medicaid with the Equality in Abortion Coverage Act.
PROVIDENCE — In 2018 and 2019, Tammy Brown could often be found holding a bright, red bullhorn and wearing a shirt that read “Abortion is Healthcare.” She and other pro-choice activists were in and out of the State House during that legislative year, warning lawmakers that if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned, Rhode Islanders would lose access to abortions.
Republicans and pro-life Democrats questioned the necessity of passing a bill that would protect abortion access at the state level, saying that activists were “overreacting” and the 1973 Supreme Court decision would “never be overturned.”
“I think that’s a concern that’s not rooted in reality,” former House speaker Nicholas Mattiello, a pro-life Cranston Democrat, said in 2018.
Pro-choice activists were not deterred.
“We were a constant presence that couldn’t be ignored. We ramped up the pressure that something needed to be done,” Brown told she recalled to a Globe reporter. “And we were OK making folks feel uncomfortable for not taking action.”
Later that year, lawmakers passed the Reproductive Privacy Act, which codified Roe v. Wade into Rhode Island state law, protecting the right to abortion in Rhode Island even if the landmark 1973 decision is weakened or overturned by the US Supreme Court. Twenty-nine members in the House, both Republican and Democratic — many of whom are still in office — voted against it.
“And now we’re facing what we all knew was the inevitable,” said Brown. “What everyone told us would ‘never’ happen.”
On Monday night, Politico reported that a leaked draft opinion suggested the Supreme Court planned to overturn Roe v. Wade as well as a supporting 1990s-era decision known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Jocelyn Foye, director of The Womxn Project, which organized the Tuesday night rally, said passing the EACA this year is now more important than ever. “It’s about everyone being given the same right,” she said.
Jennifer Rourke, a progressive activist and co-founder of the Rhode Island Political Cooperative, started her political journey in Rhode Island in 2018 when she ran for state senate. But she’s been involved in fighting for reproductive rights for as long as she could remember, she said. She said she’s been told countless times that she was hysterical for thinking that Roe v. Wade would ever get overthrown.
“It’s frustrating when your own elected officials don’t listen to you,” she said. “I had an ‘I told you so’ moment when I first heard” the news of the leaked Supreme Court opinion.
Governor Dan McKee joined a coalition of 17 governors in calling for the U.S. Congress to take immediate action to protect reproductive rights and access to abortion. In a letter to congressional leaders, the governors called on Congress to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law. While the measure could pass the House, it would face steep opposition in the Senate.
“I trust women to make their own health care decisions in consultation with their health care provider,” said McKee in a statement. “Here in Rhode Island, we stand firmly in defense of a woman’s right to choose.”
Shortly before the rally on Wednesday, the governor tweeted that he is in “full support” of the EACA, and urged the Assembly to send it to his desk.
Brown, who was the emcee at Tuesday’s rally, took the mic at the top of the State House steps in front of hundreds and called on the governor and on Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos to submit a budget amendment that would use the state’s Medicaid program to cover abortions.
“You have his ear,” Brown said to Matos, as the crowd erupted into chants. “You can’t just stand here,” she said, adding: “the time to act is now.”
