ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (LifeSiteNews) – Maryland will now spend $3.5 million to train non-doctors to perform abortions, after the state legislature overrode the governor’s veto on a bill to expand abortion access.
Maryland House Bill 937 removes previous legal limitations that restricted the performing of an abortion to a licensed doctor. The bill provides millions of taxpayer dollars for the training of nurses, mid-wives, and physician assistants in abortion procedures, and requires most private health insurance companies to cover the cost of abortions by removing co-pays.
Pro-abortion Republican Gov. Larry Hogan had vetoed the bill on Friday, but the state legislature overrode that on Saturday. The House voted 90-46 and the Senate 29-15, according to Maryland Matters.
LifeNews reports that Republican legislators stated the “legislation would put women’s and unborn babies’ lives at risk and make Maryland a ‘destination’ state for abortions.”
“I am not proud of Maryland becoming known as an abortion destination,” said Sen. Mary Beth Carozza.
The bill was also strongly condemned by House Minority Leader Rep. Haven Shoemaker, who called it the “most radical expansion of abortion in Maryland’s history, in a state that already has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country.”
Maryland Right to Life also weighed in on the bill, stating it removed one of the few remaining restrictions on the killing of the unborn in the state. “One of the few health and safety protections for pregnant women in the Maryland Code,” the organization said, “is the legal requirement that only a licensed physician may perform abortions. But the abortion industry is asking the state to authorize them to put profits over pregnant patients and allow practically anyone to ‘perform’ surgical abortions and ‘provide’ dangerous chemical abortion pills.”
House Bill 937 follows an attempt last month to pass a bill that would have allowed a baby to be killed up to 28 days after birth. The bill was withdrawn due to national scandal. However, the Maryland House passed HB 1171, titled a “Declaration of Rights — Right to Reproductive Liberty,” which aims at a popular vote in November on changing the state constitution to enshrine abortion as a “right.”