A law recently passed in Massachusetts, which modifies the conditions of access to abortion, is the subject of misleading claims on social networks. Several publications maintain that this text would now authorize abortion without any term limit, and therefore until the day of birth.
Shared in mid-August by far-right accounts on Facebook And Xthese publications all make a similar statement: “The Democratic governor of Massachusetts has just signed a law authorizing abortions up to the day of birth.” They are accompanied by a photo or video showing the Democratic Governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, at the time of signing the text.
Among the accounts having relayed this assertion are those of the sovereignists Nicolas Dupont-Aignanpresident of Debout la France, and François Asselineau, president of the Republican Popular Union. In a text published on Facebook on August 12, the latter denounced “a new stage towards the return to ancient barbarism, as the values of Christianity fade.”
What does the new law actually say?
The law in question is the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Actadopted on July 22. It replaces theSection 12N of Chapter 112 of the General Laws of Massachusetts which notably regulated terminations of pregnancy after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Before this term, a patient aged 16 or over may have an abortion without parental or judicial authorization, provided that an authorized practitioner judges that the pregnancy is less than 24 weeks and that she herself gives her written and informed consent (articles 12M And 12R).
Under the old Article 12N, abortions performed after 24 weeks were prohibited, except in four situations: when necessary to preserve the life of the patient; necessary to preserve physical or mental health; justified by an anomaly or a lethal fetal diagnosis; or justified by a serious fetal diagnosis indicating that the fetus was incompatible with sustainable life outside the womb without extraordinary medical interventions.
The new law removes these four specific categories and replaces them with more general wording: “An abortion may be performed by a physician based on the physician’s professional judgment.”
Nowhere in the new text is it written that “abortion is permitted until the day of birth.” On the other hand, the law no longer explicitly establishes, for abortions performed after 24 weeks, the four medical conditions which appeared in the old article. In theory, a doctor can now perform an abortion after 24 weeks based on his professional judgment. But the possibility of an abortion at a very advanced stage of pregnancy did not appear with this new law since the old text already allowed it when one of the four conditions provided for was met and the doctor deemed it necessary.
In a press release published on the Massachusetts state website, five Democratic elected officials from the Massachusetts House of Representatives present this modification as a response to increasing restrictions on the right to abortion at the federal level and in other states. “This law aims to ensure that, in Massachusetts, decisions about reproductive health care are made exclusively by the patient and her doctor – unfettered by a legal framework that, in practice, is not always capable of accounting for the complexity and uncertainty inherent in pregnancy-related care,” says Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano.
According to elected officials, the four categories defined by the former article 12N of chapter 112 “do not take into account all the medical situations encountered by women and their doctors”.
And in reality?
This modification can be considered as a theoretical relaxation of the legal framework, since the text no longer sets precise categories and now refers to the professional judgment of the doctor. In reality, however, abortions performed at an advanced stage of pregnancy remain very rare.
According to data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)“almost all abortions in 2022 took place early in pregnancy” in the United States. The US federal public health agency reports that 92.8% of abortions were performed at 13 weeks gestation or less; 6.1% occurred between 14 and 20 weeks, and only 1.1% from 21 weeks of pregnancy.
In this context, there is nothing to confirm that this relaxation of the legal framework will lead to a sharp increase in abortions performed after 24 weeks in Massachusetts.
Since the 2022 “Dobbs” rulingby which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional protection of the right to abortion established by Roe vs. Wade, access to abortion varies widely among states. According to the KFFa nonpartisan foundation specializing in public health research in the United States, thirteen states currently have a near-total ban on abortion, while seven others have established restrictive gestational limits, between six and twelve weeks.
In this context of increasing restrictions in part of the country, states like Massachusetts have become “Refuge” States (“abortion safe haven states”). They seek not only to maintain broad access to abortion on their territory, but also to protect health professionals who care for patients from more restrictive states. These protections take the form of “shield laws” (“shield laws”, in English), which limit the possibility for another state to prosecute or sanction doctors who have provided abortion-related care legally in the state where they practice.
