The established state law around late-term abortion has received renewed consideration and criticism after a Massachusetts woman was forced to travel cross-country to terminate a fetus at 28 weeks.
Doctors told Tara Mendola that if she carried the fetus to term, the child would die shortly after birth. Mendola told the Boston Globe for an article published Wednesday she thought aborting the fetus would be “less traumatizing” for herself and for her other children, and decided to terminate.
Massachusetts law prohibits abortion after 24 weeks, unless the mother’s life is at stake. There is no exception for fetal health conditions, so Mendola had to travel to a clinic in Colorado and pay $15,000 out of pocket for the procedure.
This story has shined light on the Roe Act, a bill currently pending in the Massachusetts legislature that aims to “remove obstacles and expand abortion access.” According to Carol Rose, the executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU, the law would clarify the process to include very specific instances, like Mendola’s case.
“These are very narrow exceptions ... when the child is severely impaired or the life of the mother,” Rose said in an interview on Boston Public Radio Tuesday. “Abortion is healthcare, and healthcare is a human right.”
The current law, as Rose sees it, does not allow individuals to adequately make decisions about their own bodies.
“The current law in Massachusetts as it stands actually fails to respect and trust both the patient-provider relationship and the decision of the woman and her family,” Rose said. “Especially when we have life-threatening complications involved, it’s particularly grave.”
Proponents of the Roe Act have been described as supporting “infanticide” by Massachusetts GOP Chair Jim Lyons. This echoes sentiments on a national stage from President Donald Trump, who has implementeda global anti-abortion policy. Gov. Charlie Baker has said he supports current Massachusetts law as it stands.
“To have Charlie Baker supporting that is really disappointing,” Rose said. “I think it’s important that we all remember that it should be a woman’s health and not somebody else’s political views or political ideology that should dictate whether or not they have access to reproductive healthcare.”
