CT News Junkie | Free Abortion Legal Hotline Available For CT Patients, Caregivers

By Viktoria Sundqvist | Originally Published by CT News Junkie

HARTFORD, CT — Reproductive Equity Now, Connecticut’s attorney general, legal partners and supporting organizations came together Monday to highlight a fairly new resource available to local residents: An abortion legal hotline.

The free, confidential hotline is available for patients or providers in Connecticut with questions related to reproductive care at 833-309-6301 or online at abortionhotlinect.com.

The hotline was first launched in Massachusetts 2023 and came to Connecticut in 2024. So far, 250 people have been offered help and guidance from pro bono attorneys and volunteers, according to Liz Gustafson, Connecticut state director of Reproductive Equity Now.

With a new awareness campaign launching this week, residents can expect to see posters and billboards advertising the hotline across Hartford and New Haven as well as other local communities for the next four weeks. More than 200 attorneys have signed on to help field questions and provide guidance without charge to callers.

“That support has never been more critical than now,” Gustafson said at a news briefing Monday in Hartford. “The hotline gives people more than answers – it gives people confidence.”

Both Gustafson and Attorney General William Tong said the amount of misinformation on the internet — and constantly changing laws in other states — contribute to fear, chaos and confusion from women and their providers. 

“It makes people second-guess themselves,” Gustafson said. “Trusted legal expertise is essential.”

Attorney Chris Mattei — a partner at the law firm Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder — said the hotline’s goal is very simple: to make sure patients and healthcare providers understand their rights when making life-changing healthcare decisions.

“As lawyers, we have a special obligation to defend people whose rights are threatened, and we are proud to stand with women in defense of their rights to make basic decisions about their own healthcare,” Mattei said.

Translation services are available for hotline callers who are non-English speakers,  Reproductive Equity Now said.

“Abortion is safe, legal and accessible here in Connecticut, and that’s the way it is going to stay,” Tong said. 

If anybody comes into Connecticut to try to take rights away from women, they will have to come through the attorney general’s office, Tong said.