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Massachusetts has legalised abortion up-to-birth after Democrat Governor Maura Healey signed legislation removing the state’s previous restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks.
Healey signed H.5595, the “Act Prioritising Patient Access to Care”, on Monday, surrounded by a large group of women who applauded as the Governor approved one of the most permissive abortion laws in the United States.
Previously, abortion was generally permitted in Massachusetts during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. After that point, an abortion could be performed if a physician considered it necessary to preserve the mother’s life or physical or mental health, or in cases involving a lethal fetal anomaly or where the unborn child could not survive outside the womb—much like in Britain.
The new legislation removes those specific restrictions. Instead, it states that after 24 weeks “an abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”
The change means there is no longer a statutory requirement after 24 weeks for the abortion to be justified by one of the circumstances previously specified in Massachusetts law.
The legislation also removes the requirement for abortions after 24 weeks to be performed in a “duly authorised hospital” and scraps an annual reporting requirement concerning abortion facilities’ procedures and processes.
Despite the law permitting abortion on the ground of foetal anomaly before, Healey said the legislation would allow families receiving serious diagnoses during pregnancy to “make their own choices.”
“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,” she said.
The Democrat-dominated Massachusetts legislature approved the measure last month. The state Senate fast-tracked the legislation ahead of the end of its formal session on 31 July.
Republican state representative Alyson Sullivan-Almeida condemned the change, saying: “It’s a very sad day in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
“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,” she added.
The Massachusetts law goes further in an important respect than the abortion changes recently enshrined into law in England and Wales.
Clauses in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 remove criminal liability from women who procure their own abortions at any point of gestation. Whilst the pills-by-post regime gives England and Wales de facto abortion up-to-birth, the aforementioned law does not authorise doctors or abortion providers to perform elective surgical abortions up to birth. This is not the case in Massachusetts, who have expressly changed the law governing abortion provision after 24 weeks—giving them de jure abortion up-to-birth.
Rather than merely removing criminal penalties from the woman, it permits a doctor to perform a late-term abortion if they’re willing.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, described Healey’s decision as deeply disturbing and called for federal protections for unborn children.
“Without a minimum national standard,” she said, “the United States remains one of only eight countries worldwide that allows abortion at any point in pregnancy.”
Peter Kearney, Communications Manager of SPUC, also commented: “The law in England and Wales is barbaric and leaves some of the oldest third trimester babies without protection in the home. The law is Massachusetts is now, somehow, worse, as it takes somewhere that should be even safer for the child, a medical setting, and turns it into a place of butchery.”
He continued, “Every child around the world deserves legal protection from the start of their life, namely conception.”
