Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey has signed a law that eliminates the specific medical reasons that previously conditioned abortions after 24 weeks of gestation and leaves its practice in the hands of the physician’s «professional judgment.» The reform removes the last protections for «viable unborn children» and opens the door to abortion up to birth.
Until now, the legislation allowed abortion after 24 weeks when it was considered necessary to preserve the life or physical or mental health of the mother, or in the case of certain serious diagnoses of the unborn child. The new rule removes those express conditions and replaces them with «the professional judgment of the physician» performing the abortion.
From the 24-week limit to the physician’s judgment
The reform was approved by the Massachusetts House of Representatives on July 22 by a vote of 119 to 33. Its supporters argue that it aims to protect the physician-patient relationship and allow responses to complex medical situations without the restrictions previously in place.
However, the new wording does not merely introduce new exceptions, but eliminates the objective conditions that restricted abortions after 24 weeks.
«Governor Healey and the Massachusetts Legislature have erased the last protections for unborn children who can feel pain and who could survive outside the womb,» denounced Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, according to Life News.
Tobias highlighted the contradiction that premature babies of a certain gestational age receive intensive care to keep them alive while other babies at the same stage of development can be aborted.
«When legislators remove all objective limitations and authorize an abortion provider to decide whether an abortion can be performed at any point in pregnancy, abortion up to birth is precisely what the law allows,» she stated.
It also eliminates the requirement to perform these abortions in hospitals
The new legislation also eliminates the requirement that abortions after 24 weeks be performed in a hospital.
Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, maintains that the reform allows a single physician to determine whether an abortion can be performed in advanced stages of pregnancy.
«Legalizing elective abortion up to birth in healthy mothers and healthy unborn children capable of feeling pain is not about protecting the physician-patient relationship,» Flynn stated.
The pro-life leader called, in the face of abortion in pregnancies with particularly serious diagnoses, for women to receive information and support on alternatives such as perinatal palliative care and other support resources.
Massachusetts deepens its abortion legislation
The reform consolidates Massachusetts among the North American states with one of the most permissive legislations on abortion.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade precedent in 2022 and returned broad powers to the states to legislate on abortion, the country has moved in two opposite directions: while some states have approved greater protections for the unborn child, others have eliminated restrictions and strengthened access to abortion.
Massachusetts is among the latter. With the new law, after 24 weeks, the specific medical circumstances previously required are no longer demanded and the decision is linked to the physician’s professional judgment, thus eliminating one of the last barriers to abortion.