“Our health care system is in critical condition,” Senate President Ruggerio said as legislators call for eliminating medical debt, retaining primary care doctors, and ensuring drugs are affordable.

The legislation draws a new line for Rhode Islanders’ constitutional rights to access the shore, but it will likely face legal challenges

“No one should become trapped in a spiral of debt — with the heavy weight of stress that debt brings — simply because they get sick. Medical debt is a danger for public health, it holds back our economy, and it prevents individuals and families from achieving financial security.”’

The state Supreme Court upheld the state’s Reproductive Privacy Act, passed in 2019 to safeguard abortion rights in Rhode Island. The high court upheld Superior Court Judge Melissa E. Darigan’s November 2019 dismissal of a challenge to the law brought by the advocacy group Catholics for Life and several other activists. 

With access to health care and reproductive rights under constant attack, tonight we can celebrate Rhode Island’s commitment to advancing reproductive freedom. As states across the country continue to pass extreme, harmful, and unlawful abortion bans with the intent of challenging the protections of Roe v. Wade in front of Trump’s Supreme Court, Rhode Islanders can be assured that the fundamental right to abortion is guaranteed in their state, no matter what happens at the federal level.