Massachusetts governor overrides petition with emergency order to enact law allowing abortion up to birth 

Abortion up to birth is now legal for any reason in Massachusetts after Gov. Maura Healey signed an emergency order Friday, overriding a petition with more than 110,000 signatures that sought to suspend the legislation and put it before voters in 2028.

“Having read the Governor’s editorial defending her decision to override the results of the Repeal188 efforts, we respectfully and passionately disagree that abortion, the taking of human life, may be considered health care,” four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts wrote in a statement, referencing the campaign to oppose the act. “We also disagree that there is an emergency requiring the further expansion of the existing and already radically permissive law.”

The Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act removes previous restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy and permits elective abortions through all nine months for any reason, based on the “professional judgment” of an abortionist, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America explains in a press release. The Democrat-led Massachusetts House and Senate passed the legislation in July, and Healey, also a Democrat, signed it in August. It was set to take effect 90 days later.

But Compassionate Care Coalition, led by Massachusetts Citizens for Life and Massachusetts Family Action, gathered 113,477 signatures through its Repeal188 campaign. Massachusetts law requires 49,719 valid signatures to temporarily suspend legislation and 37,289 signatures to ask voters to repeal the act in the next election, scheduled for November 2028, Zeale reports.

Healey, however, signed an emergency preamble Nov. 6 to put the act into immediate effect, preventing the petition from temporarily suspending the legislation. The campaign can still place the repeal question on the November 2028 ballot if election authorities certify the required signatures. But for the next two years, the act is law.

State bishops asked lawmakers to reconsider.

“We call upon the legislators who crafted and passed this bill, and all men and women of good will, to reconsider the troubling state of our culture and its utilitarian and merciless approach to the elderly, the sick, the vulnerable, and the unborn,” the Massachusetts bishops wrote in their joint statement. “As Pope Leo put it: ‘The right to life is the indispensable foundation of every other human right.’”

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser called the law “barbaric,” saying abortion up to birth is the “Democrats’ plan for the entire country.” Massachusetts is one of 12 states that allow abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, and America is one of only eight countries to permit abortions up to birth, according to SBA’s press release.

The organization wants to see a national effort to end late-term abortions.

“Our congressional allies must vehemently fight back, and in 2028, we must nominate a party leader who will advocate a national minimum standard to stop inhumane late-term abortions,” Dannenfelser said. “Babies in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis are no less deserving of protection and we cannot stand by and let pro-abortion extremists drag the entire country’s human rights standard down to that of China and Vietnam.”

Heartlander News reached out to the Repeal188 campaign for comment.

(Featured image: Massachusetts State House)