The Massachusetts Legislature may vote next week to expand the right to abortion through an entire pregnancy, a measure to be placed in a budget bill.
If passed, the bill will permit post-24-week abortions to protect the life and health of the mother, and if the fetus has a serious disabling or terminal condition. But notice that virtually anything and everything can qualify for a legal post-24-week termination, including psychological, familial, and emotional factors. From the “Roe Act”–Bill S 1209 (my emphasis):
Section 12L. The Commonwealth shall not interfere with a person’s personal decision and ability to prevent, commence, terminate, or continue their own pregnancy consistent with this chapter. The Commonwealth shall not restrict the use of medically appropriate methods of abortion or the manner in which medically appropriate abortion is provided.
Section 12M. A physician, acting within their lawful scope of practice, may perform an abortion when, according to the physician’s best medical judgment, the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, as defined in section 12K of this chapter.
A physician, acting within their lawful scope of practice, may perform an abortion when, according to the physician’s best medical judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case, the patient is beyond twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy and the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or physical or mental health, or in cases of lethal fetal anomalies, or where the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside the uterus. Medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the person’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient.
In other words, abortion for any reason at all.
This bill is akin to the radical bills passed earlier this year in New York and Vermont. No limits of any kind.
By the way, notice the deployment of the term “person” instead of woman or female. After all, as we are all now told, men and boys can give birth too.