A new bill in the Massachusetts legislature would allow abortions up to birth.
What does the ROE Act do? A grim love letter written by the abortion industry to itself, this bill overhauls the abortion code contained in the Massachusetts General Laws, creating a right to unrestricted abortion.
- It eliminates the parental-consent requirement for a minor girl seeking abortion (no matter how young); parents do not even have to be notified. No adult at all (except perhaps an adult impregnator) need be involved before, say, a pregnant 13-year-old walks into an abortion facility—not even a judge, as provided for under the current “judicial bypass” option.
- It expands taxpayer funding of abortion.
- It eliminates the requirement that abortions after the first trimester be performed in hospitals. Later-term abortions (of pregnancies 24 weeks and beyond) involve induction and delivery as a matter of course. These are not outpatient procedures according to basic standards of care.
- It eliminates legal protection for a child who survives an abortion attempt, enabling passive infanticide (through exposure).
- It eliminates all criminal penalties for the performance of any abortion—whether coerced, sex-selective, eugenic, incompetently executed, performed by a non-physician, inflicted on a victim of sex trafficking, statutory rape, or other sexual abuse, etc. Literally no abortion could be performed in Massachusetts that might become a matter for state law enforcement.
- It removes the current hedge against late-term, or even full-term, abortion.
- It makes outlawing any abortion procedure, no matter how gruesome (such as partial-birth abortion), impossible in Massachusetts.
- It eliminates every single mention that there is another human being involved; it even eliminates any mention of “woman.” [Roe v. Wade’s holding of a possible state interest in protecting prenatal human life and the state’s interest in regulating later-term abortions for the sake of the health and safety of mothers is completely disavowed.]
This does not represent the American, or even the Massachusetts, consensus on abortion. This is abortion absolutism.
Going beyond even New York’s Reproductive Health Act, the ROE Act creates a right to unrestricted abortion:
“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.”
The majority of Americans do not wish the agonizing and complex question of abortion to be settled in terms of the brute simplicity of abortion-industry radicalism, which is not pro-choice, but pro-abortion (the more abortion, the more profit for them). This legislation was drafted by the abortion industry, for the abortion industry. The mother and her difficulties disappear; the human being in the womb disappears.
[1] Crucial input was provided by three lawyers in particular, Erika Bachiochi, Henry Luthin, and Lillian Vogl, who graciously applied their expertise to this analysis. Agreement by them with any given point is not to be assumed; any deficiencies remaining are my sole responsibility.
[2] The ROE Act is the shorthand designation of two bills: SB 1209 (An Act to Remove Obstacles and Expand Abortion Access) and HB 3320 (An Act Removing Obstacles and Expanding Access to Women’s Reproductive Health). Aside from the slightly different titles, the bills are identical.
LifeNews Note: Dr. J. David Franks is the chairman of the board of Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
ACTION: Contact Massachusetts lawmakers.
