Massachusetts’ New Abortion Law is ‘Normalizing the Deaths of Fully-Developed Infants,’ Pro-Lifers Warn

Massachusetts recently became the eleventh state in the nation to allow abortion at any point in a woman’s pregnancy, with Governor Maura Healey signing into law a measure codifying full and complete access to abortion up until birth.

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The bill was touted by Healey and supporters as “legislation strengthening abortion protections in Massachusetts.” Healey went so far as to say, “This law continues our efforts to have the strongest abortion protections in the country because in Massachusetts, we believe health care decisions should be made between women and their doctors.”

But the president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Myrna Maloney Flynn argues that “legalizing elective abortion up to birth on healthy mothers and healthy, pain-capable unborn children is not about protecting the doctor-patient relationship.”

“It is about abortionists normalizing the deaths of fully-developed infants and pressuring vulnerable women to permit their unborn children to die in heinous acts of violence,” she said. “These abortions represent among the most severe human rights abuses permitted in only a few places around the world, including China and North Korea.”

The bill is framed as allowing doctors to use their discretion when providing so-called “abortion care” during late-term pregnancies. It specifically aims to remove any legal uncertainty around what options a woman may have if she is facing medical uncertainty.

“It takes a truly dead heart to celebrate and sign a bill that allows viable babies to be killed in the womb via heart attacks when they could live outside of it. Gov. Maura Healey ignored settled science, human decency, and common sense as her own state’s laws allow a person to be charged with fetal homicide if they end a baby’s life without a mother’s consent,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, told National Review in a statement.

Hawkins noted the new law runs afoul — logically, if not legally — of judicial precedents in the state that have affirmed personhood rights for fetuses.

The state supreme court first ruled in 1984 that killing a fetus, in cases of homicide or wrongful death, qualifies as a homicide charge. Similarly, the court upheld that position in a 2023 case, Commonwealth v. Ronchi.

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While that ruling stands, the state’s new abortion law removes all of the state’s previous restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks. 

The state legislature passed the bill, H.5595, in a landslide 119 to 33 vote, but state Representative Alan Silvia, a Democrat, told NR he voted against the measure because he strongly opposes any attempts to expand access to abortion in his state.

“My position has been consistent: I believe in protecting human life, including the life of the unborn,” Silvia told National Review. “We go to extraordinary lengths as a society to protect vulnerable life, saving whales and saving strays, yet when it comes to an unborn child, that same sense of protection too often seems to disappear. As a legislator, I cannot support policies that continue to expand abortion, particularly in the later stages of pregnancy. This is not an issue I take lightly, and I understand there are deeply held views on both sides, but I will continue to stand by my convictions and vote accordingly.”

Pro-life groups expressed similar concern with the bill, with some even calling on Republicans to abandon their long-held position that abortion law should be left to the states.

“It should shock the conscience that tens of thousands of unborn Americans are barbarically dismembered limb by limb and torn apart every single year. Sadly, that number will only increase with Gov. Healey’s approval of the Abortion Up Until Birth Bill,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement. “The GOP must abandon the ‘leave it to the states’ position – a stance that permits egregious late-term abortion laws like this one – and advance national protections for unborn children. Without a minimum national standard, the United States remains 1 of only 8 countries worldwide that allows abortion at any point in pregnancy. We must do all we can to turn the page on America’s ugly chapter of late-term abortion.”

Hawkins, from Students for Life, issued a similarly emotional appeal.

“Many of us have gone into delivery early and held in our arms a baby who could now be killed in Massachusetts,” she said. “You have to wonder how Gov. Healey can sleep at night with virtual infanticide on her conscience.”

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