In a major development in the fight to keep abortion legal in Rhode Island no matter what the U.S Supreme Court might do in the future, the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote Tuesday on a reworked bill to enshrine the Roe v. Wade ruling into state law.

PROVIDENCE — In a major development in the fight to keep abortion legal in Rhode Island no matter what the U.S. Supreme Court might do in the future, the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote Tuesday on a reworked bill to enshrine the Roe v. Wade ruling into state law.

Friday afternoon, the committee posted a copy of the reworked legislation online four days ahead of the scheduled vote on what has been the most controversial issue of the year.

According to a summary from House spokesman Larry Berman, highlights of the reworked version of the bill [H 5125], introduced by Rep. Anastasia Williams, include:

- Strict codification of Roe v. Wade, which has been in federal law since 1973.

- A specific ban on all late-term abortions except when necessary for the life or health of the mother.

- The inclusion of language affirming a federal law banning "partial-birth abortion."

The legislation also leaves untouched an existing state law that requires "care of babies born alive during attempted abortions." That law makes it a crime — manslaughter — for any medical professional to intentionally fail to "provide reasonable medical care and treatment to an infant born alive'' who then dies.

Berman said it appears that the reworked bill — cosponsored by Representatives Williams, Christopher Blazejewski, Karen Alzate, Jean Philippe Barros and Evan Shanley — has the support of the Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, which has led the fight for passage of a state law to protect the legality of abortion in Rhode Island up until such time as a fetus is "viable,'' meaning it can live on its own, and after that only in dire medical circumstances.

The coalition includes Planned Parenthood, the Women’s Fund, the ACLU, the Coalition Against Domestic Violence and several other groups.

Coalition spokesman Erich Haslehurst issued a statement Friday night that the group "is proud to support" the reworked measure. "This bill both addresses concerns that have been raised regarding the original version of H 5125, and achieves the goal of protecting access to safe, legal abortion in Rhode Island no matter what happens at the federal level," the statement said.

There was no immediate response from Barth Bracy, chief lobbyist for the Rhode Island Right to Life Committee at the State House.

But Saturday morning, in a post on Twitter, the Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, urged lawmakers to avoid condoning late-term abortion: "I'm hopeful that, in the end, the General Assembly and the Governor will do the right thing and oppose any legislation that provides for late term abortions, for any reason. It's an abhorrent practice and Rhode Islanders are clearly and strongly opposed."

Hundreds of people with strong feelings about abortion came to the State House on Jan. 29 for an hours-long House Judiciary hearing on five bills at extreme ends of the abortion debate, including the Williams bill and and a competing bill championed by the dissident Democrats opposing House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello.

The testimony that night was in many ways a replay of arguments Rhode Island lawmakers heard over the last two years.

The hopes and the fears among advocates on each side stem from the confirmation in October of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Abortion opponents hope Kavanaugh will, at some point, provide the decisive vote to strike down the Roe v. Wade ruling, which established a constitutional right to early-term abortion.

The anti-abortion lobby promoted bills to prohibit what is described as “dismemberment abortion on a living unborn child,” except to save the life of the pregnant woman, and define the point at which human life begins as the point at which there is a detectable heartbeat, or “flutter.” A third seeks to guarantee "the right to life" at fertilization.

Abortion-rights advocates focused on Rep. Edith Ajello’s bill to bar any arm of Rhode Island government from interfering with a woman’s decision to “terminate a pregnancy provided the decision is made prior to fetal viability” — which is defined as the point at which the attending physician determines “there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus’ sustained survival outside of the womb.”

More than half the House members — 39 of 75 — have cosponsored Ajello’s bill, which also seeks to repeal a number of laws ruled unconstitutional and unenforceable.

The Williams bill covered some of the same ground, but also attempted to directly address the Right to Life Committee’s oft-stated (and adamantly disputed) concern that the Ajello bill, if passed, would allow unrestricted abortions right up to the ninth month of pregnancy. It did so in a way that the ACLU denounced as "a back-door effort to use the bill as a vehicle for ‘fetal homicide’ legislation, which specifically, and problematically, treats a fetus as a person.”

The reworked Williams bill still bars any arm of Rhode Island government from interfering with a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy prior to "fetal viability."

It also says: "The termination of an individual's pregnancy after fetal viability is expressly prohibited except when necessary, in the medical judgment of the physician, to preserve the life or health of that individual."