The legislature’s Regulation Review Committee voted at its most recent meeting to reject proposed changes to regulations affecting abortions performed in the state. Members present at the July 23 meeting voted to accept the Legislative Commissioner’s Office recommendation to reject the proposed changes without prejudice.
The proposed regulations primarily incorporated changes from a 2022 law, passed after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, that expanded the types of healthcare professionals authorized to perform abortions. The law authorized advanced practice registered nurses, nurse-midwives, and physician assistants to perform aspiration and medication abortions. It also specified that the decision to seek an abortion must be made by the patient in consultation with those types of healthcare professionals, updating prior law that specified that the decision be made between a patient and a physician.
The proposed regulation put forth by the Department of Public Health (DPH) would have incorporated these legislative changes. They also made other changes that consolidated and rearranged language from existing regulations, as well as clarified the definition of medication abortion.
They were not anticipated to have any fiscal impact. The Department of Public Health anticipated that the regulations would impact the 14 outpatient clinics in the state that offer outpatient abortion services by increasing the number of services available, but that this would “improve access to health care while reducing costs associated with delays in care” rather than having an adverse impact.
The proposed language also updated requirements abortion providers are required to report to the state: changing reporting requirements from within seven days of when an abortion was performed to annually and eliminating a requirement that the patient’s town of residence be reported. The updated changes would have required it to be noted whether the patient was a resident of Connecticut or a different state. The original proposed language to the updated regulations also removed existing language specifying the data would only be used “for statistical purposes.”
DPH updated reporting requirements after it received public feedback expressing concern over the reporting requirements. DPH noted that it was revising the reporting requirements to “meet those minimum data points to support US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention purposes.”
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Think you missed the major problems with the proposal – it unilaterally removed existing statute language without notice; offered changes that had no legislative origin and failed to notify Public Health Committee of other changes.