Healey move puts abortion law into effect early, relaxing restrictions and teeing up fierce 2028 ballot fight

THIS MAY FEEL FAMILIAR.

Opponents of a recently passed law gathered enough signatures to freeze the law in its tracks until voters can weigh in at the ballot box, but the governor has signed an emergency preamble forcing the law into effect immediately.

Hot on the heels of Bay State voters turning away an effort to repeal a sweeping gun control law, they’ll almost certainly face a similar conundrum on abortion in 2028.

A coalition of anti-abortion groups announced in the last week of October that they had gathered nearly 100,000 signatures to repeal Chapter 188 of the Acts of 2026, which eliminates previous restrictions on abortions beyond 24 weeks of pregnancy, leaving the decision to the “professional judgment” of the physician.

The changes were signed into law by Gov. Maura Healey in August, and set to take effect this Sunday. Healey at the time said this took government out of an “incredibly rare” and personal decision. State health officials report that in 2024, the last year of available data, 99 of the state’s 49,450 abortions took place at 24 weeks of pregnancy or later.

Anti-abortion activists and some religious leaders immediately decried the law, and Catholic Church leaders in Massachusetts released a letter condemning the permissiveness of the new legislation.

The Compassionate Care Coalition, backed by Massachusetts Citizens for Life, says it delivered around 113,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office, surpassing the 49,716 required to suspend the law until it can be decided by repeal referendum on the 2028 ballot.

“The people of Massachusetts did not ask for abortion through all nine months, and in a matter of weeks they made that clear,” said Sam Miele, chair of the Compassionate Care Coalition and director of Massachusetts Family Action, in a statement on October 29. Now, he said, “voters will have the final say.”

Until they do, thanks to the emergency preamble, the law will be in effect and cannot be suspended.

In the letter announcing the preamble, Healey said the state’s exemptions to its previous restrictions on later abortions — limited to situations imperiling the patient’s life or health, or lethal or grave fetal diagnosis — have proven “too narrow to account for the full spectrum of high-risk pregnancy complications that can arise later in pregnancy.”

Healey has long touted the state’s abortion laws as a point of pride.

The state “is home to some of the best hospitals in the world, and our laws contain some of the strongest abortion protections in the country,” Healey wrote. Yet, she said, some patients have had to leave Massachusetts to get abortions after the 24th week, facing significant out-of-pocket costs, or forego the care entirely,

In a Substack post, she recounted the story of an expecting mother who found out about fatal fetal defects at 31 weeks, and needed to travel out of her home state alone to get an abortion in Washington, D.C. “That is unacceptable,” Healey wrote.

Healey similarly attached an emergency preamble to a sprawling 2024 gun law updating and expanding the state’s restrictions, after opponents gathered enough signatures to suspend it until voters could consider a ballot referendum on whether to keep it. Just over two thirds of voters decided to preserve the law on Tuesday, rejecting the repeal effort.

Whether the abortion law repeal will make it to the ballot depends on whether the secretary of state’s office certifies enough signatures. A spokesperson for the office said Thursday that staff was prepared, once the 5 p.m. Friday deadline for signature submissions passed, to begin the process of reviewing each sheet for disqualifying marks and tallying the signatures by county. The process typically takes 1 to 2 weeks, depending on the number of petition sheets filed.

The repeal campaign savaged the emergency preamble on Friday afternoon.

“Governor Healey’s preamble reflects an utter disregard for the men and women she was elected to represent,” wrote Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life and vice chair of the Compassionate Care Coalition. “In a matter of a few weeks, more than 113,000 of her constituents went out of their way to oppose a highly controversial, deeply consequential, law that blindsided legislators and voters alike. Healey ignored their questions and concerns on August 10, and she has once again prevented any dialogue.”

Massachusetts has scrambled to adapt to the changing legal status of abortion around the country in recent years, particularly after the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022.

The previous year, Massachusetts lawmakers overrode Republican then-Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto of part of the ROE Act, which updated the state’s abortion laws and included a provision allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to seek abortion care in consultation with their health care provider.

But in June 2022, on the day of the Supreme Court’s decision, Baker issued an executive order prohibiting executive branch cooperation with out-of-state investigations targeting lawful abortions in Massachusetts. His move was later codified and expanded upon by the Legislature.

That law prevents cooperation with other states looking to discipline Bay State providers, limits the release of sensitive data, allows prescription labels to display a practice name instead of an individual physician’s name, and codifies a state requirement for abortion care to be provided in emergencies when medically necessary. Today, it is being challenged a coalition of Republican state attorneys general, in a challenge that may be taken up by the US Supreme Court.

Healey moved to stockpile the abortion drug mifepristone in 2023, worried about restrictions on telehealth and abortion care provided via mail. The nation’s high court ruled earlier this year that the medication could remain accessible by mail.

In her letter, Healey said “any further delay in implementing the Act would prolong uncertainty for patients, families, physicians and health care institutions, and risk further harm to the health and safety of women in Massachusetts.”

Abortion access groups and doctors cheered the governor’s emergency preamble decision.

Rebecca Brendel, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said the move “protects the physician-patient relationship.” Physicians, she said, must make complex, individualized treatment recommendations “based on scientific evidence, established standards of care, and circumstances unique to our patients. Decisions regarding abortion care later in pregnancy should be no different.”

Lawmakers recognized that at no point in a pregnancy is a politician more fit than a doctor to make those evaluations, said Sheila Ramirez, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, in a statement.

“Voters will get the chance to affirm this at the ballot in 2028,” Ramirez said, “but in the meantime, we are grateful Governor Healey is making sure patients facing unexpected, devastating circumstances later in pregnancy can get the care they need in their own state.”