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Massachusetts has just become the 10th state to remove statutory limits on abortion. Prior to the passage and enactment of “Chapter 188 of the Acts of 2026,” what they have called “An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care,” Massachusetts held to a statutory limitation on abortion to the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. That is gone.
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No longer is abortion allowed by exception after 24 weeks if it is “(i) necessary to preserve the life of the patient; (ii) necessary to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health; (iii) warranted because of a lethal fetal anomaly or diagnosis; or (iv) warranted because of a grave fetal diagnosis that indicates that the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside of the uterus without extraordinary medical interventions.”
Those words have been replaced with two simple statements that grant sweeping authority to destroy human life: “An abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician,” and “no medical review process shall override the professional judgment of a treating physician and a patient or the patient’s health care proxy to provide an abortion.”
The practical implications of the law are clear: The life of a viable infant may now be ended in Massachusetts even moments before birth.
By the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ guidelines, prenatal screening begins by the middle of the first trimester, and ultrasound imaging is universally recommended during the second trimester at 18-22 weeks to identify possible structural or anatomical defects. If the ACOG guidelines are followed, almost all conditions that might lead one to consider abortion have been checked before Massachusetts’s previous statutory cutoff for abortion access at 24 weeks.
With all the major concerns eliminated, why then would anyone feel pressed to pursue an abortion after 24 weeks?
Massachusetts’s governor justified the bill by offering anecdotal stories of pain, anguish, heartache, and trauma that she had heard from some women as being the worst moments of their lives. She stated her belief that healthcare decisions should be made by doctors and their patients without the intervention of politicians and that removing statutory limits would keep abortion safe, legal, and accessible in Massachusetts. It’s always puzzling that the word “safe” is used in a procedure that results in the intended death of one of the patients.
Sponsors of the bill made vague and suspicious claims about the need for the change. One claimed that removing the old four-part test would place the decision to abort in the hands of doctors and their patients, rather than in the hands of attorneys. Others claimed that changing the law would allow abortions in-state, so no patients would have to travel out of the state for the procedure.
One parent told of the complicated case of her baby, who had a grade 4 hemorrhage in utero at 33 weeks, causing them to have to travel to Maryland to abort her child, who had a 50% chance of survival. The standard of care when this happens, which I’m sure would have been offered in Massachusetts, is early delivery and appropriate medical intervention, including palliative or hospice care if necessary. Not abortion.
Little evidence was given, at least in the public record, for these claims of medical need after 24 weeks. If you talk with maternal-fetal medicine doctors, as I have, they will tell you that these cases almost never happen late in pregnancy. The law could have been amended to accommodate these very rare situations.
It seems reasonable to assume, then, that the revision of the bill was an anti-life, ideological statement that broadens the definition of barbarism in the abortion controversies in the United States. Healey hinted at the true motivation when she said that the bill was intended to ensure that abortion remains available in Massachusetts, “no matter what Donald Trump or Republicans in Congress or the Supreme Court does.” We will kill our babies if we wish!
The language of the Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey era was confused in many ways, as the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision concluded in 2022. However, looking back, we can see signs of sanity then that are now being erased from this culture, intent as it is on killing its babies. In the Roe decision, the Supreme Court stated that “a state may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision.”
Again, flawed language, but an important principle.
Massachusetts has washed its hands of any compelling interest in protecting human life. It has left its citizens unguarded by the law to pursue their most barbaric instincts.
BIDEN’S INSTAGRAM-TO-DOORSTEP ABORTIONS ARE STILL HAPPENING
Break up with a boyfriend and not want to see his face in your baby? Kill it. If you’re a satanist who wants to offer your baby to your demons? The state provides the ritual, and it’s legal.
Barbaric. All of it!
Mark Bradford is the fellow for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the Word on Fire Institute.
