Legislation

Nationwide, women face higher premiums than men for the same health insurance, leaving women disproportionately less able to purchase vital health care coverage.

While the ACLU weighed in on the expected spate of abortion bills, including bills mandating ultrasounds before abortions and codifying Roe v. Wade into state law, perhaps the most heated debate came from an innocuous bill seeking to create a licensing program for genetic counselors.

The House passed a resolution calling upon Congress to repeal sections of the National Defense Authorization Act which sanction the indefinite detention without charge or trial of anyone in the United States.

The General Assembly, in an effort to ease the financial burden on school districts, has eliminated a requirement that districts post advance notice of school committee meetings in newspapers.

A law passed last year allowing the state to appoint receivers to take over fiscally-distressed municipalities was strengthened this year over objections from the ACLU and lawmakers from Central Falls.

ACLU efforts to strengthen the state's open records law, known as APRA, fell short this year.

ACLU legislation was successfully enacted to clarify existing law about screening newborns for illnesses.

An ACLU bill that has been enacted into law bars most merchants from demanding any part of a customer’s social security number as a condition of commercial transactions.

An extremely significant civil liberties loss this year was the passage of legislation allowing law enforcement to obtain an individual’s internet subscriber information from internet service providers without a warrant.