House Bill 5414

House Bill 5414, passed by the Connecticut General Assembly and signed into law by that U.S. state's Governor, Ned Lamont, on May 5, 2022, as the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act,^[1][2] is intended to protect abortion in the state and expand the procedure's availability. Several of its provisions are responses to the Texas Heartbeat Act,^[3] passed in late 2021 and since emulated by two other states, that would prevent enforcement in Connecticut of judgements obtained by lawsuits filed under those laws against abortion providers, patients and those who facilitate them.^[4] It also allows more non-physician providers to perform certain types of abortions, codifying a past legal opinion.^[5] The law took effect July 1.^[6]

The bill was introduced in March by Rep. Matt Blumenthal, a member of the state House from the Democratic Party, which strongly supports abortion rights nationally and enjoys a trifecta in Connecticut, with majority control of both houses of the legislature and the governor's office. Five weeks later it was passed by the House with support from most Democrats and some members of the Republican minority; the state Senate followed 10 days later. In both chambers' debates some Black female Democratic members voted in opposition; while they knew the bill would pass, they spoke of their frustration with the lack of any birth control options for young women in their communities besides abortion and the unsavory past they associated with the procedure. Lamont had promised he would sign the bill; during the week after its passage, a draft majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court's then pending Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which as it did when handed down at the end of June overturned Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision striking down most state abortion laws, was leaked and published, giving the bill greater urgency for its supporters.