Bill H.5595 passed the Massachusetts Senate on July 31, cleared the House the week before, and now sits on Governor Maura Healey's desk waiting for a signature that everyone in Boston already knows is coming. The legislation is called the "Prioritizing Patients' Access to Care Act." What it actually does is eliminate every gestational limit on abortion in the state of Massachusetts.
Meaning its about to become legal to kill a baby up until the moment of birth in Massachusetts.
Current Massachusetts law allows late-term abortion only after 24 weeks if it's necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother, or if the baby has been diagnosed with a fatal condition. H.5595 replaces all of that with a single standard: the "professional judgment of the physician" performing the abortion. The doctor who gets paid to do the procedure is now the sole person who decides whether it happens.
Kelsey Pritchard, communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, laid out what that means in practice. "Massachusetts' new abortion bill is very extreme, legalizing abortion on demand until birth, paid for by taxpayers," Pritchard said. She added the part the bill's sponsors would rather you not think about: "Second- and third-trimester abortions are brutal and barbaric, generally done by dismembering the baby or inducing labor."
"Under this law the abortionist, who profits financially from performing the abortion, is the sole approver," Pritchard said.
State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, one of the bill's sponsors, offered the standard defense. "Medical decisions belong between patients and their doctors, not the Legislature," Sabadosa said, adding that "physicians in Massachusetts can provide care based on their best medical judgment and the unique needs of each patient."
That framing works when the fetus is just a ball of cells. It gets considerably harder to maintain when you're talking about a baby that could survive outside the womb, has a heartbeat, responds to sound, and — in the third trimester — can feel pain. At some point, "medical decision" stops being an accurate description of what's happening and starts being a euphemism.
The Massachusetts Catholic bishops called it "a radical measure which is gravely immoral," urging the faithful "to pray for a renewal of reverence for all human life." SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser pointed out that this level of abortion access polls at roughly 10% approval nationally. "These extreme laws that only 10% of Americans support are enabled by the 'states-only' philosophy on abortion," Dannenfelser said.
If Governor Healey signs the bill — and given her record as one of the most outspoken abortion supporters in any governor's mansion, the question isn't if but when — Massachusetts will become the 11th state with no limits on abortion whatsoever.