Gov. Maura Healey signed a bill eliminating Massachusetts's 24-week abortion limit, and the sharpest criticism came not from Republicans but from members of her own party who called the measure "extremist" and "barbaric."
Healey put her signature on the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act at the State House in Boston on August 10, making Massachusetts one of a handful of states that now place no statutory gestational cap on when an abortion can be performed. The bill passed the state House of Representatives 119, 33 on July 22, largely along party lines, but nine House Democrats crossed over to vote no alongside Republicans, an unusual fracture in a legislature where the Democratic supermajority rarely splits on social policy.
The new law strips away the state's previous restriction on abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy and hands physicians broad discretion to perform the procedure later in pregnancy based on their own professional medical judgment. It also grants healthcare workers greater protection from legal penalties. Under the old framework, abortions past 24 weeks were permitted only to protect the life of the mother or in cases of severe fetal anomalies. That guardrail is now gone.
State Rep. Jeffrey Turco of Winthrop did not mince words. Turco told Fox News Digital the law represents a position far outside the mainstream, even in deep-blue Massachusetts.
"This new law represents an extremist and dangerous position. To be clear, it allows abortion anytime, unrestricted, and in many cases, publicly funded until the moment of birth."
Turco went further, calling the measure "barbaric" and charging that leadership had "rushed through the legislative process in two weeks, without an opportunity for the public to weigh in." He said the bill was "out of step with the views of the average person in Massachusetts."
State Rep. Chris Markey of Dartmouth echoed the concern in different terms. Markey warned that the law creates legal and ethical confusion for physicians and conflicts with existing precedent.
"I am deeply disappointed in the passage of this bill. This bill creates a very slippery slope. I believe this law puts doctors in a very difficult ethical dilemma, as well as conflicts with long-standing criminal case law."
Markey added a line that may sting Democratic leadership most: "While many are pro-choice, you can still be pro-choice and see this law as going beyond the norms of acceptability." He said the law does not reflect the beliefs of "the vast majority" of his constituents.
State Rep. Alan Silvia of Bristol, one of the legislature's few openly pro-life Democrats, framed his opposition in blunt moral terms.
"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."
Silvia said his position has been consistent throughout his career: "I believe in protecting human life, including the life of the unborn." He pledged to continue opposing any further expansion of abortion access, particularly in later stages of pregnancy.
State Rep. Dennis Gallagher of the 8th Plymouth District offered what may have been the most candid admission of internal conflict among the dissenters. Gallagher acknowledged that abortion should remain a decision between a woman and her doctor, but he drew a line at removing all limits when both mother and child are healthy.
"At that point in a pregnancy, if the health of the mother is fine and the baby's health is fine, I just think alternatives should be encouraged for that baby."
Gallagher said prior law already covered the hard cases, protecting women whose health was at risk and pregnancies involving severe fetal anomalies. The new law, in his view, went beyond what the existing framework required.
The governor defended the measure as a safeguard for families facing medical complications late in pregnancy, arguing that patients should be able to obtain care in Massachusetts rather than traveling out of state. Healey's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the dissenting Democrats' criticisms.
At the signing, Healey cast the law as a direct counter to Republican leadership in Washington: "I promise that no matter what Donald Trump or Republicans in Congress or the Supreme Court does, we're going to continue to make sure that women and families have access to the health care that they need right here in Massachusetts."
The bill's sponsor, State Rep. Lindsay N. Sabadosa of Northampton, argued that the old 24-week limit failed to account for the complexity of individual medical cases.
"Massachusetts has one of the best health care systems in the country, and patients should be able to rely on their providers to deliver medically appropriate care without restrictions that can fail to account for the complexity of individual medical circumstances. By removing those barriers, we can ensure that no one has to leave Massachusetts to receive the care they need."
With Healey's signature, Massachusetts becomes one of roughly eleven jurisdictions in the country that allow abortion throughout the entire pregnancy. The others include Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. The New York Post reported that the new law takes effect in 90 days.
SBA Pro-Life America, a national anti-abortion organization, condemned the signing. The group's president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, placed the law in a global context that its supporters would rather avoid.
"It should shock the conscience that tens of thousands of unborn Americans are barbarically dismembered limb by limb and torn apart every single year."
The organization noted that the United States is now among only eight countries worldwide that permit abortion at any point during pregnancy, a category that puts it alongside nations whose human-rights records American politicians rarely want to share.
Republican state Rep. Alyson Sullivan-Almeida put the practical consequence plainly: "The precedent that we're setting is that a mother can get an abortion up until the moment of birth for a healthy, viable baby."
The vote itself, 119 in favor, 33 against, looks lopsided on paper. But the composition of the opposition matters more than the margin. Nine House Democrats voted against their own party's bill. In a legislature where Republicans hold a small minority and rarely have the numbers to block anything, those nine Democratic defections represent something the party's progressive wing would prefer to dismiss: an admission, from within, that the law goes further than a significant number of Democratic voters are comfortable with.
Turco's charge that the bill was forced through in two weeks without meaningful public input adds a procedural grievance to the substantive one. Whether or not the timeline was technically unusual by State House standards, the accusation lands harder when it comes from a fellow Democrat rather than the opposition. Markey's warning about a "slippery slope" and Gallagher's plain-spoken concern about healthy, viable babies carry weight precisely because these are not Republican talking points. They are the private doubts of Democratic lawmakers who chose to say them out loud.
Healey's office offered no direct rebuttal to the dissenters. The governor's public remarks focused on federal threats and out-of-state access, a frame that sidesteps the specific objection her own members raised: that the law removes limits even when neither the mother nor the child faces a medical emergency.
When members of a party's own caucus call its signature legislation "extremist" and "barbaric," the problem is not messaging. The problem is the policy, and the voters who will eventually weigh in on it.
