The legislation is partly a response to the wave of new measures in conservative states restricting abortion access and in some cases levying civil and criminal penalties on people who perform them.
The NPR Politics Podcast
States Are Preparing For A Possible Post-Roe Future

The vote by the Connecticut legislature comes ahead of an anticipated U.S. Supreme Court decision in the coming weeks over a landmark abortion case. In that case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the court is deciding whether a Mississippi ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, well before a fetus is viable outside the womb, is constitutional. Fetal viability is typically between 22 and 24 weeks.

Some Republican leaders say they expect the court will overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that enshrined the constitutional right to an abortion in the first two trimesters, and leave it up to states to decide whether to permit abortions.