How Healey's election year abortion law came to be
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Massachusetts just scrubbed state law of the 24-week gestational boundary for abortions and the "exceptional circumstances" test that previously governed later-term procedures.
Why it matters: It's the state's latest move to shore up access to abortion in the post-Roe v. Wade era and it comes just as Gov. Maura Healey needs to rally Democrats to assure her reelection this fall.
- Politically, it's another win for pro-choice advocates who have been working for decades on a long list of legislative goals.
Catch up quick: The new law, signed Monday in Healey's office, rewrites the state's abortion statute to remove gestational time limits and hand physicians — not hospitals — final say on late-term care.
- It also ends the requirement that those procedures happen in a hospital.
Between the lines: Abortion bills can be a knock-down-drag-out fight on Beacon Hill, between pro-choice progressives and middle-of-the-road Democrats who'd rather not have to vote on contentious social issues.
Yes, but: Compared to other abortion access bills, this one practically sailed over the finish line once backers got the legal language down.
What gives: The political climate around abortion has shifted massively in Massachusetts over the last five years.
- Democratic voters want laws to protect access in the face of federal restrictions, so Democratic lawmakers are finding it much easier to take votes they would have avoided a decade ago.
What they're saying: Rep. Marjorie Decker, a longtime abortion rights advocate, rejected the idea that the bill reflects a shift, framing it instead as one more piece of protective legislation dating back to 2016.
- "I think that we have, since Trump's first election, been consistently finding ways to create a firewall to protect people in Massachusetts," she told Axios after Healey signed the law.
Of note: Having a Democrat like Healey in the Corner Office makes a difference.
- Former Gov. Charlie Baker, while mostly pro-choice, drew the line at most later-term abortions and limiting parental consent.
- Not that a veto would have mattered. The 119-to-33 vote saw only nine Democrats vote against the bill. Anti-abortion Dems are a dwindling presence in the House chamber.
State of play: Lawmakers and advocates describe the bill less as a sudden move and more as the product of a long, incremental process.
- House Judiciary Chair Mike Day pointed to four rounds of revisiting reproductive law over 16 years, with the language governing late-term exceptions evolving through terms like "fatal," "grave" and "serious" before landing on physician judgment.
The other side: Opponents, including the Catholic Action League, have condemned the law in sharply critical terms.
- Every Republican in the House but one voted against the bill.
The big picture: The law is the latest step in Massachusetts' trajectory from restriction to expansion that can be traced back to a 1974 parental consent law.
- In the 2020s, Massachusetts pushed through the 2020 ROE Act (over a Baker veto) and the 2022 Shield Law protecting providers from out-of-state legal action.
At the signing, Healey invoked patient stories, including a case involving a fetal stroke diagnosed late in pregnancy, to make the case for the change.
- "We're signing this law today so that new patients, people we won't know or won't meet, will be able to get the care that they need in Massachusetts."
What's next: Healey has cast the law as central to her reelection message, saying abortion access will be "on the ballot" in November.
- You won't hear that from Republican rival Mike Minogue, who wouldn't tell WBUR this week how he'd treat the new law.
- "I don't do hypotheticals," Minogue said of the objectively real new law.