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BOSTON — After lawmakers fast-tracked the bill, Gov. Maura Healey on Monday signed legislation removing restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks of gestation, a change that supporters say will help more patients stay in-state to receive care.
The law eliminates the existing four-pronged framework enabling abortions for pregnancies at or beyond 24 weeks in life-threatening situations for the patient or fetus. Instead, the new law states, “an abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”
“We’ve heard so many stories — stories that are filled with a lot of pain and anguish and heartache and a lot of trauma. We heard stories about the worst moments of a person’s life, of a couple’s life,” Healey said, surrounded by lawmakers, advocates and physicians at a news conference she hosted in her ceremonial office. “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.”
The bill was filed at the start of the two-year session by Rep. Christine Barber, who is running this fall for an open Senate seat. It began to take off on July 22 when it was released from the House Ways and Means Committee and was pushed through both branches in a flurry of late-July legislating. The new law will go into effect in 90 days, Healey’s office confirmed.
“We know that protecting abortion access and reproductive health care has been under fire,” Healey said, noting the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. “Today, one in three women in America live in a state with an abortion ban.”
The House on July 22 voted 119-33 to pass the bill, with all Republicans who voted casting their votes against it. Democrats who rejected the bill included Christopher Markey of New Bedford, as well as Brian Ashe, Lisa Field, Michael Finn, Dennis Gallagher, Russell Holmes, Francisco Paulino, Alan Silvia and Jeffrey Turco. Rep. Susannah Whipps, the chamber’s only Independent member, voted yes.
The Senate on July 31 passed the bill with a 15-4 standing vote.
According to Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Mike Day, it’s the fourth time in 16 years that lawmakers revisited the issue “in an effort to get it right, to get government out of the way of a health issue, and to lessen the trauma inflicted on pregnant women, who are suddenly confronted with unbelievably tragic news about their pregnancies more than six months into their term.”
“We hear that some medical professionals are still uncomfortable with the specific language restrictions that they say continues to interfere with their professional medical judgment, and that some patients continue to have to leave the commonwealth or stay and endure unnecessary trauma because a treating physician is afraid that they will somehow run afoul of the law based on those restrictions,” Day, who was at the bill signing Monday, said on the House floor before the late July vote. “We’re also still hearing of patients who, after receiving this news, are ultimately unable to receive necessary medical care because they don’t have the means to afford to leave Massachusetts for it.”
Kate Dineen and her husband Alex Lawton recalled the journey they took to Washington, D.C., in 2021, when Dineen was 33 weeks pregnant and learned her baby had suffered a stroke in utero.
“He would either die or survive for some period of time with a spectrum of devastating outcomes. And so upon learning of the prognosis, I asked, ‘What are my options?’ And I will never forget the response. ‘You may still be able to explore termination if you’re able to travel,’” Dineen said. “Travel where? We were standing in our kitchen in Boston, just less than a mile from some of the best hospitals in the country.”
The diagnosis didn’t qualify for an exception, Dineen said, and their doctor’s “highly capable hands were tied by Massachusetts state law.”
The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Mass General Brigham, Tufts Medicine and UMass Memorial Health in mid-July sent a letter of support to House Speaker Ron Mariano, writing that the state’s existing statutory framework “does not adequately meet the needs of all patients.”
According to Department of Public Health Data, there were 99 abortions done at 24 weeks or later in 2024, compared to 84 in 2023. There was a sharp increase in the total number of abortions in Massachusetts in 2024 compared to those done in 2023, which public health officials have said was due to out-of-state patients accessing care through telehealth.
“The reality is that medicine does not always fit into clearly defined legal categories,” Worcester Sen. Robyn Kennedy said on the Senate floor on July 31. “Physicians need the ability to use their medical judgment and advise their patients when facing complex and rapidly changing medical circumstances.”
Public Health Committee Chair Rep. Marjorie Decker said last month that the legislation “does not tell a patient what decision to make. It does not force anyone to have an abortion. It does not take decision-making away from the patients.”
The Massachusetts Family Institute on Aug. 3 urged people, “Tell the governor to veto radical late-term abortion!” The institute called the bill “a dangerous attempt to remove virtually all remaining protections in the Commonwealth for unborn babies.”
Massachusetts Family Action sent out an email on Aug. 7, writing that the Legislature “passed one of the most extreme abortion bills in the country — allowing abortion at any point in pregnancy, for any reason, outside the safeguards of a hospital.” The group plans a webinar Tuesday on “what’s really in this bill — and how you can help elect leaders who will protect life.”
“Abortion is on the ballot this November in Massachusetts and around the country,” Healey said Monday when asked what role she thinks abortion politics play in campaigning this year. “My opponents are anti-abortion. One of my opponents, Mike Minogue, is proudly anti-abortion.”
Minogue in May said during an appearance that he’s Catholic and “pro-life,” adding that “as governor, I know what the law is, and I’m going to uphold the law.” GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve called himself a “pro-choice Republican” on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” in May, and suggested Minogue isn’t electable across the state due to his stance on the issue.
According to Reproductive Equity Now, abortion care after 24 weeks represents less than 1% of terminations in the United States. The group’s Interim Executive Director Claire Teylouni has also said that the provision within the law that would remove the requirement that abortions beyond 24 weeks occur in a hospital is meant to expand abortion care in other settings as hospitals deal with federal funding concerns.
“Massachusetts is affirming again that abortion is essential healthcare, and that politicians should never stand between a patient and their doctor. The significance of this law goes far beyond our state borders,” Teylouni said Monday.
ACLU of Massachusetts Executive Director Carol Rose applauded the law Monday in a statement, and said that it ensures “pregnant patients in Massachusetts will no longer have to travel far from their home state to access the care they need.”
