With transgender and reproductive healthcare under attack nationally, Rhode Island moves to protect
"I urge Rhode Island to embrace its rebellious roots and stand opposed to states taking extraordinary control over the lives of the people living within their borders," testified Jocelyn Foye.
“…more than 20 U.S. states have ignored medical evidence and best practices to ban essential medical care for transgender people,” testified Thundermist Health Center President and CEO Jeanne LaChance. “Just as many states have banned some reproductive health care services. These bans are dangerous, exert extraordinary control over people’s lives, and impose civil and criminal penalties on providers for practicing medicine in line with professional standards of care.”
The Health Care Provider Shield law heard in the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday night and up for consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday would preclude any individual from interfering with another’s access to transgender and/or reproductive health care services.
In analyzing the bill and comparing it to similar legislation in other states, the Center for Reproductive Rights noted that the bill includes critical protections:
Protecting “Legally protected healthcare activity”: Attacks on gender-affirming care mirror the attacks on abortion rights and reproductive rights and come from the same legislators, judges, and advocates. Protecting this essential healthcare together will ensure continued access to care for all Rhode Islanders.
11 states and D.C. have protected reproductive and gender-affirming care.
Prohibiting State Collaboration & Requiring Attestations: Prohibiting Rhode Island courts, public agencies, law enforcement, and state employees from collaborating with or expending resources on investigations originating in other states as well as requiring business entities not to comply with requests unless accompanied by an attestation will provide needed protections for Rhode Island providers and helpers.
16 states and D.C. have enacted similar protections.
Protecting Licensure & Employment: Preventing adverse actions against individuals who provide legally protected healthcare activity allows these providers to continue providing care. Without these protections, private right of enforcement laws or “bounty hunter laws,” endanger abortion providers’ professional licensure and livelihood, which has created a chilling effect on the availability of care.
16 states and D.C. have enacted similar protections.
Protecting Medical Malpractice: Providers have described malpractice policies as a major barrier to continuing care provision; prohibiting adverse actions will allow providers to continue practicing.
eight states have enacted similar protections.
Protecting Privacy: Protecting providers’ contact information and prohibiting ex-parte orders for wiretapping or eavesdropping will keep providers and helpers safe.
16 states have enacted similar protections.
Prohibiting Extradition: Prohibiting the extradition of people accused of engaging in, aiding, or assisting with legally protected healthcare activity ensures that providers, helpers, and patients who remain in Rhode Island are beyond the reach of states hostile to bodily autonomy.
16 states have enacted similar protections.
Relief After Hostile Ligation (“Clawback”): Allowing Rhode Islanders subject to hostile litigation to seek relief in Rhode Island courts would provide relief for those impacted by laws passed in states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Idaho that allow private citizens to sue individuals who provide or assist in the provision of abortion care.
12 States and D.C. have enacted similar protections.
“Without these critical shield protections, providers and helpers in Rhode Island could risk serious civil and criminal liability if they provide essential healthcare to Rhode Islanders and nonresidents from states that have criminalized these services,” testified Director Elisabeth Smith, U.S. State Policy and Advocacy Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Locally, the bill has the support of transgender and reproductive health care providers and advocates. 150 Thundermist Health Center employees signed onto the testimony from President and CEO Jeanne LaChance quoted at the top of this piece. LaChance called on the General Assembly “to act now to protect Rhode Island’s health care system and those seeking essential medical care in our state…
“The current standards of practice for gender-affirming care and reproductive care are based on robust medical evidence,” testified LaChance, “we have seen overreaching attempts to use these harmful laws against health care systems and providers in other states where this necessary health care is legal and accessible.”
The stakes are high for healthcare providers in Rhode Island. As Patience Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy at GLAD Legal Advocates and Defenders pointed out in her testimony, “The goals of this bill are so important at this time when transgender people and their families are facing unprecedented attacks in other states, most concerningly bans on medical care. For example, Alabama enacted a law that makes it a felony with a possible ten-year prison sentence for a provider, parent, or anyone who assists a young person in accessing medically necessary transgender-related healthcare services. As of this writing, 23 states have banned access to gender-affirming care, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. This represents an alarming increase in the rate of attacks on medically necessary gender-affirming health care...
“The importance of action at this moment cannot be overstated. Attacks on this evidence-based, standard of care health care seek to undermine essential health care for those who need it and drive health care providers from Rhode Island.”
Drs. Amy Nunn and Philip Chan, the Executive Leadership Team of the Rhode Island Public Health Institute, which owns and operates Open Door Health, were explicit about the dangers of the national trends against transgender and reproductive rights in Rhode Island. They testified:
“We believe all people have a right to high-quality health services, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, or gender expression.
“In the last few years, we have received threats and been the recipient of other hostile conduct. We believe that our staff and our institution are at risk because of discriminatory practices towards LGBTQ+ patients and our providers.
“We believe this bill provides and guarantees important protections that will help keep our staff and patients safe. This bill will also help protect us from unnecessary liability.
“Many of our patients are now grappling with mental health challenges because they fear discrimination or they fear that their basic rights to medical care are under siege.”
Rhode Island has a long history of providing legal protections for our transgender and non-binary siblings and residents. We were the second state to codify protections for transgender and non-binary residents, over a decade ago.
“As states across the country ban essential medical care for transgender people and some or all abortion care, I urge Rhode Island to embrace its rebellious roots and stand opposed to states taking extraordinary control over the lives of the people living within their borders,” testified Jocelyn Foye, Executive Director of The Womxn Project, with a nod towards that history. “Medical providers should not be penalized for doing their job and people should not be prevented from exerting control over their bodies. These decisions should not rest with politicians in their high towers, and I urge Rhode Island to protect the people living within its borders by ensuring physicians are free to provide the most appropriate care for their patients.”
Giona Picheco, Legislative Chair of RI NOW, testified that “Since the United States Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedent of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which then allowed for states to ban abortion procedures, 21 states throughout the country have fully banned or effectively banned abortion procedures. Some of these states have not only criminalized women and doctors for abortion services, failed pregnancies, and life-threatening medical conditions, but some have threatened to charge and prosecute individuals from seeking or providing care in other states where it remains legal.
"Similarly, transgender people have been targeted by extremist groups aimed at controlling individual freedom in expressions of gender. There are over 500 bills filed just this year throughout the country in over 40 states aimed at restricting the rights of transgender people, with at least a quarter of those bills seeking to prohibit and/or limit health care to both minors and adults.
"Rhode Island has affirmed and reaffirmed the right for all people in our state to seek abortions and reproductive care and we have affirmed again and again that transgender people are welcome in our state and free to seek the care they need to express their identity. These concerning threats from Americans in other states who may not respect our rights as an individual state should alarm us all. And if they don’t alarm you specifically, consider how they might otherwise intimidate our health care providers and cause reservations about offering life-saving care out of fear of retribution and attacks from outside actors."
There was scant opposition to the bill, and the religious testimony heard at the hearing was favorable to the bill’s passage.
“As advocates for the voiceless and most vulnerable, the Rhode Island State Council of Churches expresses its strong commitment to protecting health care providers and the patients they serve,” testified Jeremy Langill, Executive Minister at the Rhode Island Council of Churches in support of the bill. “Christian reflection on human sexuality is often expressed as a moralizing discourse on sexual activity. Interpretive commitments, as they relate to sacred scripture and church tradition, are regularly employed to enforce this rigid discourse, causing harm through the rejection of a person’s being and leading to religious communities insulated from other domains of knowledge.
“At its core, the fundamental theological reflection is this: every person is created in the image of God, and, what is created by God is good. The remarkable diversity of gender and sexual orientation that exists reveals the depth and beauty of God’s creative activity in the world.”