Massachusetts Joins Blue States in No-Limit Abortion Laws

To those who believe abortion should be allowed up until the day of birth, it's a boon. But to those who believe taking the life of an unborn child is nothing short of murder, it's a ghastly trend. The topic here is the newly passed legislation in Massachusetts that removes restrictions on abortion. Passage of the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act permits a pregnant woman to terminate the pregnancy for any reason or no reason, and it's becoming a popular way of handling this very divisive topic in Blue State America.

The Bay State is now the tenth such dominion, along with Washington, DC, to enact such a law since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and put the states in the driver's seat when it comes to permitting abortions in their territory. Until the Dobbs decision that caused such a ruckus in 2022, most states carried some gestational limitation – but no more.

The Changing Landscape of Abortion Laws

Gone are the gestational restrictions many states called for mostly on the basis of viability outside the womb. What replaces those limits is open-ended wording designed to give the mother full control over whether her baby deserves to be born. The act contains wording that totally disregards the child. So now in Massachusetts, all a pregnant woman needs to do is seek out a doctor to give her the answer that she wants because abortion will now be "based on the professional judgment of the physician."

Free with the Daily Briefing

85Essays

Unravel the Constitution

Hamilton, Madison & Jay’s complete case for America, free and searchable in the Publius Reader.

Join Free & Read

Free with the Daily Briefing. Unsubscribe anytime.

This puts doctors in the position of playing God. If a new mother is confused or ambivalent about having a child, she need not make a decision until the very last moment before birth. All she would need to do is seek out a doctor to give her permission to take the life of her child.

House sponsor of the bill, Rep. Lindsay N. Sabadosa, the Democrat representing the 1st Hampshire District, wrote on her Facebook account: "Medical decisions should be made by a patient and their doctor. Period." Later in the post, she said, "Massachusetts is home to one of the nation's leading health care systems. Patients deserve medically appropriate care without unnecessary legal barriers that fail to reflect the realities of medicine. By removing those barriers, we can help ensure no one is forced to leave Massachusetts to receive the care they need."

Sabadosa and her ilk are motivated by their desire to protect women, but nowhere does she advocate on behalf of the child. The debate has long been a cultural dispute between those who believed that the health and welfare of the mother should eclipse that of the baby in utero and those who lobbied on behalf of the unborn child. However, as medical technology advanced, it became more challenging to set gestational limits because advances in radiological imaging revealed there was another live human involved.

So where do we stand in America on abortion? It appears that with Roe gone, blue states have taken the opportunity to wipe out restrictions on abortion in the name of caring for women. Under Roe, most states felt the need to set limits on the procedure – whether this was on medical or moral grounds is uncertain. What is clear is that with Dobbs in place of Roe and leftist legislatures removing barriers to abortion, one wonders: Who will stand up for the unborn?