Guest ColumnRead Next
Investigative
Former Planned Parenthood staffers sue, claim former CEO tried to deemphasize abortion
Nancy Flanders
·Spotlight Articles
GUEST OPINION: Massachusetts’ new late-term abortion law asks only for a willing physician
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author.
On November 8, a new Massachusetts law is set to take effect that, instead of tightening the standard for abortion after 24 weeks, removes the standard. From then on, the only standard will be “the professional judgment of the physician.”
The old law already allowed abortion after 24 weeks if the physician judged it necessary to save the mother’s life or protect her physical or mental health, or if the child had a lethal or grave diagnosis.
So what does this new law allow that the old one didn’t?
Massachusetts' new abortion law allows a physician to commit an abortion past 24 weeks without requiring any conditions to be met first. The old law required one of four conditions to be met in order for a physician to make this decision.
Now, any woman at any time during gestation — even one who is healthy, with a healthy preborn child near birth — only needs to find a physician willing to end the life of her child.
Justice requires us to stand in the place of everyone a decision touches, but the new law protects only the judgment of the physician and woman — not the child. Yet, under Massachusetts law, the same child is a victim if killed by an assailant, but a lawful termination if a physician kills that child.
The law, H.5595, titled “An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care,” was signed by Gov. Maura Healey on August 10. The old law began with a prohibition that “no abortion may be performed except by a physician, and only if” one of four conditions was met.
The new law replaces this prohibition with explicit permission that “an abortion may be performed by a physician.”
It will be objected that a physician must still judge. But the old law also turned on the physician’s judgment, only it required that judgment to be about something. Under the new law, the judgment is the measure.
But is an abortion justified because the physician judges it so, or does the physician judge it so because of something about the case? Whether any act is justified depends on what the act is and its circumstances. A law can name those circumstances. It decides what kinds of reasons count and the physician can decide whether this case has one.
The old law did this by giving four distinct reasons, and the physician judged whether the case met one. None of these reasons justifies intentionally ending a child’s life, but the old law at least attempted to state when a late-term abortion was justified.
The new law no longer gives any reasons, but leaves it up to the physician to determine what counts as a reason at all, and whether this particular case has one.
Two physicians, left to their own discretion, can look at the same pregnancy and reach opposite conclusions, and the law can’t say either is wrong. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court noted how difficult it is to coherently draw lines around fetal viability, then asked whether those questions must “be left entirely to the individual ‘attending physician.’”
Massachusetts has answered yes.
Rep. Christine Barber said in a House press release that the bill “guarantees medical expertise as the standard of care.”
Standards of care tell a physician how to do a procedure, but leave open whether intentionally ending a child’s life is warranted at all. Barber gets it backwards: the old law made medical expertise the standard, as each of its four reasons was a medical finding, and the new law adds cases with no medical finding.
A woman 35 weeks pregnant with a healthy child and no threat to her own health now needs nothing but a willing physician.
The new law also forbids any “medical review process” from overriding “the professional judgment” of physician and patient. As Live Action News reported in August, it strikes the requirement that abortions after 24 weeks happen in a hospital.
Supporters made their case through stories that Healey described as “filled with a lot of pain and anguish and heartache.”
The most prominent came from Kate Dineen, who in 2021, at 33 weeks, learned her son had suffered a stroke in the womb. She was told that she might still be able to seek an abortion if she traveled out of state, and since her diagnosis “didn’t qualify for an exception,” her doctor’s hands were “tied by Massachusetts state law.” She traveled 500 miles to Maryland.
State Sen. Robyn Kennedy made the broad case: “medicine does not always fit into clearly defined legal categories.”
Kennedy is right that gray areas sometimes arise at the edges of the statute’s categories. The legislature already added one category a year after Dineen’s case: “grave fetal diagnosis.”
Even after that change, Nicole Martin, a mother 31 weeks pregnant, learned that her son’s brain had stopped growing, and her doctors couldn’t tell whether this counted as “grave.”
If the categories are unclear, the remedy isn’t to repeal them, but to clarify them.
Repealing every limit because a few cases are hard is, as Trent Horn argues in "20 Answers: Abortion," like repealing “all speed limits just because there are rare cases in which they need to be ignored to get someone to a hospital.”
The woman 35 weeks pregnant with a healthy child and no threat to her health, who needs only a willing physician, sits nowhere near a gray area. At that stage, a child can be delivered. Even at 28 weeks, 94% of babies survive to discharge.
Supporters ask us to stand in the mother’s place, but justice requires us to stand in the place of everyone a decision touches. The new law protects only the judgment of two people, physician and patient, and no one is required to stand in the child’s place.
In 2023, in Commonwealth v. Ronchi, Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court upheld a first-degree murder conviction for killing a full-term unborn child, because causing the death of a viable fetus “before or after it is born, is homicide.”
Yet under Massachusetts law, the same child is a victim if killed by an assailant and a lawful termination if a physician kills that person.
While abortions in Massachusetts at 24 weeks or later are rare (84 in 2023 and 99 in 2024), the injustice of an act is not determined by how rarely the weakest suffer it.
As a Catholic, Healey has spoken of “our responsibility to care for others, especially those who are the most vulnerable among us.” I take her at her word, and that is what makes this so grievous.
Only God knows her heart; I know what the act is. This law permits a child who could be delivered alive to be killed instead, and the killing recorded as “care.”
Author Bio: Austen Haynes holds an M.A. in philosophy from Boston University and is the founder of Mellifluous Press.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
Nancy Flanders
·
International
Rebecca Oas, Ph.D.
·
Guest Column
Lisa Bourne
·
Guest Column
Mark Lee Dickson
·
Guest Column
Valerie Abraham
·
Guest Column
Right to Life UK
·GUEST OPINION: Massachusetts’ new late-term abortion law asks only for a willing physician
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author.
On November 8, a new Massachusetts law is set to take effect that, instead of tightening the standard for abortion after 24 weeks, removes the standard. From then on, the only standard will be “the professional judgment of the physician.”
The old law already allowed abortion after 24 weeks if the physician judged it necessary to save the mother’s life or protect her physical or mental health, or if the child had a lethal or grave diagnosis.
So what does this new law allow that the old one didn’t?
Massachusetts' new abortion law allows a physician to commit an abortion past 24 weeks without requiring any conditions to be met first. The old law required one of four conditions to be met in order for a physician to make this decision.
Now, any woman at any time during gestation — even one who is healthy, with a healthy preborn child near birth — only needs to find a physician willing to end the life of her child.
Justice requires us to stand in the place of everyone a decision touches, but the new law protects only the judgment of the physician and woman — not the child. Yet, under Massachusetts law, the same child is a victim if killed by an assailant, but a lawful termination if a physician kills that child.
The law, H.5595, titled “An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care,” was signed by Gov. Maura Healey on August 10. The old law began with a prohibition that “no abortion may be performed except by a physician, and only if” one of four conditions was met.
The new law replaces this prohibition with explicit permission that “an abortion may be performed by a physician.”
It will be objected that a physician must still judge. But the old law also turned on the physician’s judgment, only it required that judgment to be about something. Under the new law, the judgment is the measure.
But is an abortion justified because the physician judges it so, or does the physician judge it so because of something about the case? Whether any act is justified depends on what the act is and its circumstances. A law can name those circumstances. It decides what kinds of reasons count and the physician can decide whether this case has one.
The old law did this by giving four distinct reasons, and the physician judged whether the case met one. None of these reasons justifies intentionally ending a child’s life, but the old law at least attempted to state when a late-term abortion was justified.
The new law no longer gives any reasons, but leaves it up to the physician to determine what counts as a reason at all, and whether this particular case has one.
Two physicians, left to their own discretion, can look at the same pregnancy and reach opposite conclusions, and the law can’t say either is wrong. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court noted how difficult it is to coherently draw lines around fetal viability, then asked whether those questions must “be left entirely to the individual ‘attending physician.’”
Massachusetts has answered yes.
Rep. Christine Barber said in a House press release that the bill “guarantees medical expertise as the standard of care.”
Standards of care tell a physician how to do a procedure, but leave open whether intentionally ending a child’s life is warranted at all. Barber gets it backwards: the old law made medical expertise the standard, as each of its four reasons was a medical finding, and the new law adds cases with no medical finding.
A woman 35 weeks pregnant with a healthy child and no threat to her own health now needs nothing but a willing physician.
The new law also forbids any “medical review process” from overriding “the professional judgment” of physician and patient. As Live Action News reported in August, it strikes the requirement that abortions after 24 weeks happen in a hospital.
Supporters made their case through stories that Healey described as “filled with a lot of pain and anguish and heartache.”
The most prominent came from Kate Dineen, who in 2021, at 33 weeks, learned her son had suffered a stroke in the womb. She was told that she might still be able to seek an abortion if she traveled out of state, and since her diagnosis “didn’t qualify for an exception,” her doctor’s hands were “tied by Massachusetts state law.” She traveled 500 miles to Maryland.
State Sen. Robyn Kennedy made the broad case: “medicine does not always fit into clearly defined legal categories.”
Kennedy is right that gray areas sometimes arise at the edges of the statute’s categories. The legislature already added one category a year after Dineen’s case: “grave fetal diagnosis.”
Even after that change, Nicole Martin, a mother 31 weeks pregnant, learned that her son’s brain had stopped growing, and her doctors couldn’t tell whether this counted as “grave.”
If the categories are unclear, the remedy isn’t to repeal them, but to clarify them.
Repealing every limit because a few cases are hard is, as Trent Horn argues in "20 Answers: Abortion," like repealing “all speed limits just because there are rare cases in which they need to be ignored to get someone to a hospital.”
The woman 35 weeks pregnant with a healthy child and no threat to her health, who needs only a willing physician, sits nowhere near a gray area. At that stage, a child can be delivered. Even at 28 weeks, 94% of babies survive to discharge.
Supporters ask us to stand in the mother’s place, but justice requires us to stand in the place of everyone a decision touches. The new law protects only the judgment of two people, physician and patient, and no one is required to stand in the child’s place.
In 2023, in Commonwealth v. Ronchi, Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court upheld a first-degree murder conviction for killing a full-term unborn child, because causing the death of a viable fetus “before or after it is born, is homicide.”
Yet under Massachusetts law, the same child is a victim if killed by an assailant and a lawful termination if a physician kills that person.
While abortions in Massachusetts at 24 weeks or later are rare (84 in 2023 and 99 in 2024), the injustice of an act is not determined by how rarely the weakest suffer it.
As a Catholic, Healey has spoken of “our responsibility to care for others, especially those who are the most vulnerable among us.” I take her at her word, and that is what makes this so grievous.
Only God knows her heart; I know what the act is. This law permits a child who could be delivered alive to be killed instead, and the killing recorded as “care.”
Author Bio: Austen Haynes holds an M.A. in philosophy from Boston University and is the founder of Mellifluous Press.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
Nancy Flanders
·International
Rebecca Oas, Ph.D.
·Guest Column
Lisa Bourne
·Guest Column
Mark Lee Dickson
·Guest Column
Valerie Abraham
·Guest Column
Right to Life UK
·