BOSTON (LifeSiteNews) — Massachusetts Democrat Gov. Maura Healey is doubling down on her signing of a law establishing effectively unlimited abortion up to birth in the state, insisting she remains a “proud Catholic” despite calls for her excommunication.
Under previous state law, an abortion could only be committed past 24 weeks if a physician deems it “necessary to preserve the life of the patient”; “necessary to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health”; “warranted because of a lethal fetal anomaly or diagnosis”; or “warranted because of a grave fetal diagnosis that indicates that the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside of the uterus without extraordinary medical interventions.”
Such exceptions, pro-lifers have long warned, give abortionists ample wiggle room to authorize late-term abortions under false pretenses and are never actually medically necessary or justifiable. But H. 5595 does away with even those conditions, replacing the language with “an abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”
It also adds language that “No medical review process shall override the professional judgment of a treating physician and a patient or the patient’s health care proxy to provide an abortion consistent with” the new section.”
Healey, a radically pro-abortion governor who is also in a homosexual relationship, signed the law in a ceremony surrounded by women (some wearing white doctors’ coats). The law has garnered intense condemnation from pro-lifers and religious figures in Massachusetts and across the country, with even a few Democrats publicly distancing themselves from it. Healey identifies as a member of the Catholic Church, which teaches that abortion is a “moral evil,” complicity in which “constitutes a grave offense” carrying the “canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.”
The Boston Herald reported that a spokesperson for the governor’s office responded by insisting that, “as a proud Catholic,” Healey is a “governor for all people of all faiths” who “believes everyone is deserving of kindness and empathy, especially in their time of need. She believes that those women and families should have been able to get the care they needed here in Massachusetts, and it was unfair to force them to travel to other states.”
The Herald noted LifeSiteNews’s petition urging Archbishop Richard Henning to formally excommunicate Healey for “her scandalous betrayal of God’s law and His Church,” which as of this writing has more than 26,000 signatures. It also noted that CatholicVote is urging Church officials to excommunicate, with president Kelsey Reinhardt arguing that excommunication is to “bring back her soul” by sending the governor a message “she has gone somewhere she cannot remain without consequence.”
In response, the archdiocese has reiterated that the new law is “gravely immoral” and that it will keep working to “uphold Catholic teaching prohibiting the direct attack on innocent human life from conception to natural death” but has not committed to excommunicating Healey.
Abortion defenders have long attempted to downplay late-term abortions as rare bordering on nonexistent, while opposing any attempt to restrict them. But the facts show they are a very real problem.
According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reviewed by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), while more than 90 percent of abortions occur in the first trimester, more than 50,000 abortions a year take place after 15 weeks (almost four months into pregnancy), and approximately 10,000 after 20 weeks (five months).
Further, contrary to pro-abortion narratives, most of these abortions are not sought for extreme “medical emergencies.” A 2013 Guttmacher report admitted “data suggests that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment,” and notorious late-term abortionist Warren Hern’s own published data found that fetal abnormalities ranged from just a fifth to a third of his patients – and that the most common of those “abnormalities” was Down syndrome, a condition that is neither a death sentence nor even a guarantee of an unhappy life. Yet for years congressional Democrats have consistently voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban most abortions after five months.