Nine Massachusetts House Democrats broke with Gov. Maura Healey and sided with Republicans against a new abortion law that critics say allows the procedure until birth.
The Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, which Healey signed this week, removes statutory restrictions on abortions past 24 weeks and gives doctors more protection from legal penalties when they perform later-pregnancy abortions based on their professional medical judgment.
The bill passed the state House 119-33 on July 22, but the Democratic opposition turned the vote into more than a straight party-line fight.
State Rep. Jeffrey Turco, a Winthrop Democrat, told Fox News that the law was not a modest access measure.
“This new law represents an extremist and dangerous position,” Turco said. “To be clear, it allows abortion anytime, unrestricted, and in many cases, publicly funded until the moment of birth.”
Turco said the public was not given a real chance to weigh in before the legislation moved through Beacon Hill.
He said the bill was “rushed through the legislative process in two weeks, without an opportunity for the public to weigh in,” and was “out of step with the views of the average person in Massachusetts.”
“The new law is barbaric,” Turco added.
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Healey has defended the law as a safeguard for women, couples and families facing late-pregnancy medical complications.
“We’re a state with some of the strongest abortion protections in place,” Healey said. “And yet, you’ll hear from folks about some things that just weren’t in the right place in terms of making sure that women and couples and families had access to the care that they need, particularly those who experience complications late in pregnancy.”
The Democratic governor said abortion access in Massachusetts would remain protected under her administration.
“We believe that health care decisions should be made between women and families and their doctors, not politicians,” Healey said. “Abortion will remain safe. It will remain legal, and it will remain accessible here in Massachusetts. That’s my commitment to you.”
Democratic state Rep. Christine Barber, who sponsored the legislation, made the same doctor-patient argument, saying abortion “should be between a doctor and a patient.”
State Rep. Chris Markey, a Dartmouth Democrat, said the bill went beyond what many abortion-rights supporters in his district could accept.
“I am deeply disappointed in the passage of this bill. This bill creates a very slippery slope,” Markey told Fox News Digital. “I believe this law puts doctors in a very difficult ethical dilemma, as well as conflicts with long-standing criminal case law.”
He said the measure did not match the views of most of his constituents.
“While many are pro-choice, you can still be pro-choice and see this law as going beyond the norms of acceptability,” Markey said.
State Rep. Alan Silvia, a pro-life Democrat from Bristol, also rejected the expansion and said his position on unborn life had not changed.
“My position has been consistent: I believe in protecting human life, including the life of the unborn,” Silvia said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Silvia used animal-protection efforts to argue that Massachusetts was failing to apply the same concern to children before birth.
“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,” he said.
He said the late-pregnancy portion of the law was a line he could not cross.
“As a legislator, I cannot support policies that continue to expand abortion, particularly in the later stages of pregnancy,” Silvia said. “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.”
Healey used the signing to draw a hard political line between abortion supporters and opponents, saying Monday’s event was intended to “stand with women.”
“The bottom line for people in Massachusetts, if you care about women’s health, if you care about making sure that women are able to access the health care that they need in consultation with their doctors, should be clear,” Healey said. “I stand with women. My opponents do not.”
At a Massachusetts Statehouse press conference, Healey said the law was meant to keep patients from leaving the state when late-pregnancy complications arise.
“We’ve heard so many stories –– stories that are filled with a lot of pain and anguish and heartache and a lot of trauma,” Healey said while surrounded by lawmakers and advocates. “We heard stories about the worst moments of a person’s life, of a couple’s life.”
She said she signed the measure “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.”
Healey also tied the law to national politics, saying Massachusetts would protect health care access “no matter what Donald Trump or Republicans in Congress or the Supreme Court does.”
“We’ve seen what Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress have done,” Healey said. “We saw the statements of the United States Attorney General over the weekend, who says he wants to make the Dobbs decision, you know, the law of the land.”
She said abortion is “on the ballot this November in Massachusetts and around the country.”
Other states with similar laws include Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Michigan, Vermont, New Jersey and Maryland.
Massachusetts Citizens for Life attacked the new law after Healey signed it, with group president Myrna Maloney Flynn accusing the state of allowing late abortions on healthy mothers and unborn children.
The group said the law normalizes “the deaths of fully developed infants and pressuring vulnerable women to permit their unborn children to die in heinous acts of violence.”
“These abortions represent among the most severe human rights abuses permitted in only a few places around the world, including China and North Korea,” Flynn said.
She rejected Healey and Barber’s argument that the law simply protects private medical decisions.
“Legalizing elective abortion up to birth on healthy mothers and healthy, pain-capable unborn children is not about protecting the doctor-patient relationship.”
