#raimondo

- Calcultta

Rhode Island Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo has signed a bill codifying abortion protections, joining other Democratic-controlled states looking to safeguard the procedure as conservative states push ahead on abortion restrictions.

The bill "codifies what has been the status quo under Roe v. Wade for nearly five decades," Raimondo said in a statement after signing the bill on Wednesday, referencing the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. "It protects a woman's access to reproductive health care here in Rhode Island at a time when that access is under threat at the federal level and in states across our country."Rhode Island's bill, the Reproductive Privacy Act, bans the state from restricting "an individual person from preventing, commencing, continuing, or terminating that individual's pregnancy prior to fetal viability" or after fetal viability "to preserve the health or life" of the woman.

Calcutta, Del Verde