Governor Maura Healey signed legislation removing Massachusetts' 24-week abortion limit and granting physicians sole discretion over late-term procedures, a move a board-certified OB-GYN says is medically unnecessary and dangerous for women.
Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, told Fox News Digital that when a woman faces a life-threatening pregnancy complication beyond 24 weeks, the answer is delivery, not a multi-day abortion procedure. Francis said she can perform an emergency C-section in under five minutes. A late-term abortion, she said, can take days.
Healey signed the bill, formally known as the Prioritizing Patients' Access to Care Act, on August 10 at the Massachusetts State House in Boston. The law replaces the state's previous 24-week gestational limit, which had allowed exceptions only for the mother's life or deadly fetal diagnoses, with a standard based entirely on a physician's "professional judgment." It also shields doctors from legal penalties for performing abortions later in pregnancy. The law takes effect 90 days after signing.
The legislation, designated Bill H.5595, cleared the Massachusetts House on July 22 and the Senate on July 31 before landing on Healey's desk. The speed drew scrutiny from opponents who argued the state was rushing to eliminate meaningful safeguards on one of the most consequential medical procedures a woman can undergo.
Massachusetts now joins Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., in permitting abortion throughout the entire pregnancy. The broader national pattern, Democratic-led states expanding abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, is unmistakable.
But what supporters call expanded access, critics call the elimination of any meaningful guardrail for women or their unborn children late in pregnancy.
Dr. Francis did not hold back about the practical effect of the legislation. She argued the law contains no gestational cutoff that would prevent a physician from performing an abortion days before a woman's due date.
"There's nothing in this law that says that at 39 weeks and five days, a woman could not have an abortion. These procedures are risky for the mom. They lead to significant risk of complications."
Francis drew a sharp contrast between emergency delivery and late-term abortion. In a genuine medical crisis, severe preeclampsia, placental abruption, or another life-threatening complication, the standard of care is to deliver the baby, she said, not to begin a procedure that can stretch across multiple days.
"If a woman's life is in danger, if she's facing a pregnancy complication beyond 24 weeks, we simply deliver her. And in fact, delivery is much more expedient than a later-in-pregnancy abortion procedure."
That distinction matters. Supporters of the law, including Healey, frame it as a safeguard for women facing devastating medical news late in pregnancy. Francis argues the framing obscures a basic medical reality: when a mother's life is at stake, speed saves her. An emergency C-section takes minutes. A late-term abortion takes days.
Healey offered a different rationale. She pointed to women who received devastating diagnoses late in pregnancy and were forced to travel hundreds of miles for care because Massachusetts hospitals turned them away under the old law's narrow exceptions.
"I've heard heartbreaking stories from women and families who were preparing to welcome a healthy baby into their family, only to receive devastating news later in their pregnancy. Instead of being able to rely on the doctors they knew and trusted at home, they were forced to travel hundreds of miles and pay out of their pockets while navigating unimaginable grief."
AP News reported that hospitals had turned away some women seeking late-term abortions under the previous law, including a case involving a fetus that had suffered a stroke and was unlikely to survive. The old law's specific list of allowable reasons left physicians uncertain about whether they could legally act.
Healey cast the new law as a continuation of Massachusetts' effort to maintain what she called the strongest abortion protections in the country.
"This law continues our efforts to have the strongest abortion protections in the country because in Massachusetts, we believe healthcare decisions should be made between women and their doctors."
She also took a direct shot at federal Republican leadership, pledging that her state would continue expanding access regardless of what the Trump administration, Congress, or the Supreme Court did.
Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who now leads the pro-life organization And Then There Were None, pushed back against the argument that late-term abortions happen only in rare, medically necessary circumstances.
"We hear a lot of pro-choice advocates say, 'You know, well, that just doesn't happen. It only happens in these very difficult certain circumstances.' But I can tell you firsthand, as a former abortion clinic director, it's just not true."
Johnson argued that the Massachusetts law is a political reaction to conservative states, she named Texas, Florida, and South Carolina, that have moved in the opposite direction, passing heartbeat bills and other restrictions. She described the dynamic as a pendulum.
"It feels almost like rebellion. There's a lot of states that have moved in a more conservative direction, passing heartbeat bills, passing really restrictive legislation. And so we see, then the pendulum swings toward the other side."
Johnson also made a point that rarely surfaces in the mainstream debate: most Americans who identify as pro-choice do not support elective abortions at 36 weeks. She argued the Massachusetts law goes further than even its own political base would endorse.
"A lot of pro-choice people will say, 'OK, we understand abortion in the first trimester,' but this is out of step with the majority of pro-choice people. Most pro-choice people do not understand abortion at 36 weeks, an elective abortion at 36 weeks. But that is what this legislation allows."
Republican state Rep. Alyson Sullivan-Almeida framed the stakes in blunt terms. She said the law sets a precedent "that a mother can get an abortion up until the moment of birth for a healthy, viable baby."
Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, echoed the concern from a safety angle. "While this legislation prioritizes access, it does not prioritize a woman's safety," Flynn said.
Kelsey Pritchard, communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the bill "very extreme, legalizing abortion on demand until birth, paid for by taxpayers."
Supporters of the law, including bill sponsor state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, countered that the legislation simply puts medical decisions where they belong. "Medical decisions belong between patients and their doctors, not the Legislature," Sabadosa said.
Dr. Francis also raised the question of fetal pain, a subject she acknowledged remains contested among medical groups, though she argued the science is clear.
"The science is very clear, as early as 12 weeks of pregnancy, we know that babies feel pain, and we're talking about here dismemberment abortion procedures, where these babies are torn limb from limb, sometimes while they're alive, sometimes after they have had a heart attack induced by an injection directly into their heart."
The question of when fetal pain becomes possible remains disputed among medical organizations. But Francis's broader point, that the Massachusetts law imposes no gestational floor, no independent review, and no documented standard beyond a single physician's judgment, stands on firmer ground. The law, as described in every source covering it, replaces a specific list of allowable reasons for late-term abortions with a single, open-ended standard: the physician's professional judgment.
Fox News Digital reached out to Healey's office for comment on the medical concerns raised by Francis and Johnson but did not immediately receive a response.
Several questions remain. The law does not appear to specify any oversight mechanism, peer review, or documentation requirement for late-term procedures beyond the attending physician's own discretion. Whether hospitals will adopt internal policies to fill that gap is unclear. And the precise boundaries of "professional judgment", the phrase that now replaces the old law's specific medical criteria, have not been tested in practice or in court.
The law takes effect roughly 90 days after the August 10 signing, putting the effective date in early November 2026. Between now and then, the debate will almost certainly intensify, particularly as opponents highlight the gap between what most Americans say they support and what the law actually permits.
When a state removes every gestational limit and replaces specific medical criteria with a single doctor's say-so, the question is no longer whether late-term abortions will happen, it is whether anyone in Massachusetts still has the authority to say no.
