By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) – Rhode Island’s highest court docket on Wednesday upheld a state legislation guaranteeing its residents’ proper to abortion, simply as abortion rights on the nationwide degree look like in jeopardy.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court docket rejected a lawsuit by a number of people and anti-abortion group Servants of Christ for Life difficult the state’s Reproductive Privateness Act. The legislation, signed in 2019 by then-Governor Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, successfully secures the abortion rights set out within the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

State-level authorized battles over abortion will possible turn out to be frequent if the nation’s highest court docket reverses Roe, as a draft opinion leaked Monday suggests it plans to do. Different Democratic-led states, together with Colorado and Vermont, have additionally moved to go abortion rights legal guidelines.

The plaintiffs within the Rhode Island lawsuit argued that they need to have had an opportunity to vote in opposition to the abortion legislation in a referendum. Two of the plaintiffs additionally sought to convey claims on behalf of their unborn kids, saying the legislation erased their authorized rights.

The state Supreme Court docket dominated Wednesday that there was no proper to a referendum on the difficulty and that not one of the grownup plaintiffs had been harmed by the legislation, which means that they had no standing to sue.

Citing Roe, the court docket discovered that the unborn kids of the beforehand pregnant plaintiffs weren’t “individuals” who may convey authorized claims. It additionally discovered that that they had no standing as a result of they weren’t harmed both, having been born for the reason that case started.

Diane Messere Magee, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, mentioned on Twitter (NYSE:) that the choice “depends closely” on Roe, and that her purchasers had been contemplating whether or not to enchantment to the U.S. Supreme Court docket.

The workplace of Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.