The Connecticut Mirror | This Abortion Provider Appreciation Day, CT should do more to protect providers
By Liz Gustafson and Roxanne Sutocky
Originally Published in the Connecticut Mirror
For over 40 years, the easiest way to tell a loved one you were seeking local abortion care was to say you’re going to One Main. One Main Street was an instantly recognizable destination in Hartford — it was the home of Hartford GYN Center, the state’s only independent sexual and reproductive health care provider.
However, in 2021, Hartford GYN made the choice to move on from One Main to a new home in Bloomfield, just down the road.
The decision to move the practice was not made in a vacuum. One Main hosted Hartford GYN, but it also housed an anti-abortion center that was intent on disrupting care and harassing patients and staff. While heroic clinic escorts worked to protect and reaffirm those seeking care, and advocates worked to halt this harassment by passing legislation to combat anti-abortion centers, it became clear that the best way for Hartford GYN Center to continue offering patients compassionate care was to move the practice down the road.
As has always been true of abortion providers and the reproductive equity movement, we had no choice but to be resilient and creative in the face of animosity and figure out a better solution for patients, providers, and staff. Of course, the address of Hartford GYN may have changed, but the standard of the care provided there has not. In fact, it has increased. Today, Hartford GYN Center has immediate appointments available for a full range of GYN services and abortion care in an accessible, patient-centered space. The clinic has the ability to accept insurance and provide financial support to ensure services are affordable to all.
As abortion providers and advocates in the Nutmeg State, we are reflecting on these big changes for Hartford GYN today and especially Sunday, March 10 — on Abortion Provider Appreciation Day. This day honors the life of Dr. David Gunn, an incredibly brave physician who provided abortion care across the deep South, and who was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist on this day in 1993. We celebrate this holiday to honor our communities’ providers, but also recognize and recommit to protecting these heroes as threats against abortion providers rise again in the post-Dobbs era.
Here in Connecticut, we can do more to protect our providers against hostile, anti-abortion threats. While the legislature passed historic protections in 2022 to shield providers who offer abortion to patients traveling to our state, we can now go further to protect doctors who may be willing to provide medication abortion via telemedicine to out-of-state patients, too. Out-of-state, anti-abortion actors should not be able to reach across our borders to harass, threaten, or litigate against Connecticut providers who are working to ensure equitable access to abortion care.
But these anti-abortion threats are not just coming from beyond our borders. Right now, federal refusal laws allow Connecticut health care institutions, like religiously affiliated hospitals, to discipline or reprimand providers who offer medically accurate information about a patient’s health status, or referrals for care, that may not align with the institution’s moral or religious beliefs. We can pass legislation to protect providers from unfair consequences or retribution for acting in the best interests of their patients and providing basic health information or referrals. In a post-Dobbs world, doctors must be able to empower their patients with the tools to make fully informed health care decisions, without fear.
And as we show our providers appreciation for the heroic work they do each day, we must ensure their clinics are able to keep their doors open. Connecticut’s Medicaid reimbursement rate for abortion care has not been adjusted since 2008 and is currently among the lowest in the country. We must ensure family planning providers are wholly compensated for the many ways they take care of patients. The legislature can act to increase family planning Medicaid rates for abortion services and ensure our providers stay afloat in an ever-changing abortion landscape.
Attacks on reproductive health care are not slowing down in a post-Roe world. But Connecticut’s abortion providers, staff, and volunteers are unwavering in their commitment to providing compassionate, loving care. Our providers are not giving up, and this Abortion Provider Appreciation Day, we must also recommit to protecting and supporting the work they do each and every day.
