On a Monday evening in April, four University of Vermont students sat in an empty lecture hall room eating pizza and brainstorming how to best convey the importance of further safeguarding their access to reproductive care.
The group collectively made edits on a document projected on a screen. “Now that national access to reproductive healthcare has been restricted in many states, a significant portion of Vermont students can only attain lifesaving reproductive healthcare while in the state of Vermont,” they wrote.
The students, members of the university’s Planned Parenthood Generation Action Club, were composing a letter to the Vermont Legislature in support of H.89, a reproductive shield bill.
Since the Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion last summer, abortion access nationwide has become a patchwork of disparate state laws. As some states move to dramatically restrict access to or completely outlaw abortions and gender affirming care, Vermont is staking out its place as a haven for out-of-state patients. Last fall, voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution.
And this spring, two companion bills have made their way through the Statehouse to Gov. Phil Scott’s desk where they await his signature — S.37 and H.89. They would effectively shield patients and providers from legal action while, or after, accessing reproductive services.
Just last month, lawmakers in Montpelier added specific protections to both bills for the prescription of a widely used abortion medication, access to which is under threat by a federal court battle.
These protections hold particular relevance for students who attend college in Vermont but hail from states where such procedures are severely restricted or outlawed, meaning their rights differ once they head home for the summer.
“What the hope was is to say to providers: We have your back as long as you’re providing this care in the state of Vermont,” said Rep. Taylor Small, P/D-Winooski, a co-sponsor of the bill and the first openly transgender member of the Vermont Legislature.
Zoe Winterbotham, a first-year student at UVM who hails from Tennessee, said she’s reassured by the prospect of H.89 and S.37 becoming law.
“It’s very comforting because I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but knowing I have that support if I needed it, like, no one’s preventing me from doing anything I need to do,” Winterbotham said.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned, the Tennessee government wasted no time in passing a “heartbeat law,” which bans abortion when a heartbeat is detected in pregnancy. Two years before, Winterbotham’s local Planned Parenthood was burned down by arson.
Winterbotham said she loves her home state, but in terms of reproductive care, “There was a little bit of relief, I think, going to Vermont, just knowing that I would have security.”
She is in the process of basing her care in Vermont, as she is looking for doctors in the Burlington area.
According to a recent Gallup and Lumina Foundation survey, 72% of college students say their decision to remain enrolled in their school is affected by the laws regarding reproductive health in that state.
At the University of Vermont, staff are seeing this trend extend to prospective students.
Kate Jerman, director of the university’s Prism Center, an organization for LGBTQ+ members of the campus, said admitted students often stop by during campus tours.
“What we noticed this year was that a lot of students, and really entire families, were coming to us with questions including health care access for their student. And it was really on their mind in a way that we’ve never heard before.”
“Families are saying, like, we all want to come here. If they could pick up their lives and move their entire life here, they would,” Jerman said.
Small said parents from other states have written to her specifically asking for a shield law.
“I have received so many emails from parents in Texas and Tennessee and Arkansas and the Carolinas saying I really want to come to Vermont. I feel that you have all these protections. The one thing that I don’t see is a shield law protecting me and my family if we were to come there. Is that something that you can work on? And it is amazing to be able to say yes. We are actively working on that,” Small said.
The Winooski lawmaker explained how the shield legislation could also protect students in the opposite direction.
“What we can also do is, if someone is in Tennessee for school, receives gender affirming care, comes back to Vermont during break and a charge is filed in the time that they are on break and at home, we would not extradite that student back to their school state. We would be able to protect them here in the state of Vermont.”
When speaking about the importance of reproductive care in Vermont, members of the Planned Parenthood club at UVM stressed the legal protections, but also the atmosphere that draws students to the state.
“It’s not even just the aspect of having the opportunity, it’s having the safety, the comfort, the care that’s needed,” said the club’s vice president Cassie Beeler.
“There’s a lot of shame and hate and very upsetting points of views that are just negative that I couldn’t imagine like the difference between going to get an abortion here than, (in Tennessee) even when it was accessible,” Winterbotham said in an interview.
The PPGENAction club’s president Maxine Flordeliza, who is originally from Long Island, feels that Vermont’s legal and social atmosphere is a world away from her home, especially when it comes to bodily autonomy and protected health care.
“Being able to even have the setting where we could talk about this, where we could have this testimony, is great, because like, that’s not something that I feel like I could comfortably do back home,” Flordeliza said as the group finished their pizza.
Sarah Mearhoff contributed reporting.