August 10, 2026

Governor Maura Healey signs abortion expansion bill

REGIONAL
By Carolee McGrath

SPRINGFIELD – Governor Maura Healey signed an abortion expansion bill which removes all restrictions on late term abortion past 24-weeks, Monday Aug. 10. During the final hours of the legislative session, the Massachusetts House and Senate pushed through a bill called an Act Prioritizing Patient Care which removes the following restrictions: if a doctor deemed abortion necessary to protect the life of a mother; if the doctor deemed it necessary to preserve the mother’s physical or mental health; or if there is a fetal anomaly.

The new law also removes requirements that abortions later in pregnancy be performed in hospitals and by physicians. It expands abortion access at a stage when unborn children are capable of feeling pain and survive outside of the womb.

“The disparity between those who believe this new law to be ‘helpful’ to women and those who understand the reality of the extreme and barbaric consequences for the babies involved is so disheartening,” said Father Daniel Pacholec, the director of the Respect Life Office for the Diocese of Springfield.

“This new law is not compassionate toward women and most certainly not humane to the children in the womb who will be exterminated,” he said.

 Last week, as word got out about the last-minute push to pass the bill at the end of the legislative session, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, released a statement by the four bishops of the Catholic dioceses in Massachusetts objecting on moral grounds.

They wrote, “(A)s Catholic bishops, we have a moral responsibility to present and uphold Catholic teaching and the sacred God-given dignity of every human life from conception to the natural death. The proposed elimination of any legal restraint on late-term abortion is, in our judgement, a radical measure which is gravely immoral.”

Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL) had urged people to email Governor Healey to oppose the legislation. They are now focusing on educating people to the reality of what a late term abortion involves.

“We encourage those celebrating Governor Healey’s politically-motivated signature to learn not only about late-term and ‘dismemberment’ abortions, many of which Massachusetts taxpayers will fund, but also about perinatal hospice, palliative care options and other resources available to women faced with devastating, but never hopeless, fetal diagnoses,” said Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

“Legalizing elective abortion up to birth on healthy mothers and healthy, pain-capable unborn children is not about protecting the doctor-patient relationship. It is about abortionists normalizing 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. When people learn the gruesome details about late-term abortion, if their conscience is well-formed, they will be compelled to oppose it; we welcome those who wish to help us educate our well-meaning legislators and voters who elect them,” said Maloney Flynn.

This new law removing restrictions from late-term abortion comes as the number of abortions in Massachusetts doubled in 2024. According to Mass.gov statistics, there were 24,355 abortions in the state in 2023. In 2024, the number jumped to 49,450. More than half of those abortions were performed on out of state residents. Thirty-one thousand of the abortions were medical abortions, or the abortion pill.

Father Pacholec and Bishop William D. Byrne, have called on the faithful to pray and witness to life, with a goal of changing hearts and minds on the issue of abortion. The regularly scheduled monthly Pro-Life Vigil will be held Thursday, Aug. 13 at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Springfield, beginning at 10 a.m. All are welcome to join to pray for an end to abortion.