(CNN) Rhode Island Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo has signed a bill codifying abortion protections, joining other Democratic-controlled states looking to safeguard the procedure as conservative states push ahead on abortion restrictions.

The bill "codifies what has been the status quo under Roe v. Wade for nearly five decades," Raimondo said in a statement after signing the bill on Wednesday, referencing the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. "It protects a woman's access to reproductive health care here in Rhode Island at a time when that access is under threat at the federal level and in states across our country."

Rhode Island's bill, the Reproductive Privacy Act , bans the state from restricting "an individual person from preventing, commencing, continuing, or terminating that individual's pregnancy prior to fetal viability" or after fetal viability "to preserve the health or life" of the woman.

The bill's approval comes as other Democratic governors have signed legislation prioritizing abortion protections in response to a slew of Republican state legislatures advancing bills restricting abortion access in an effort to force a potential legal challenge to Roe.

The Reproductive Privacy Act bars state restrictions on contraceptives and protects medical professionals from felony assault charges for providing abortions. It also repeals measures requiring providers to notify the husbands of married women seeking abortions before conducting the procedure and banning so-called partial birth abortions.

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