'It's insanity': Massachusetts Democrats pass bill that would make it open season on viable babies

"It's insanity," James Lyons told Blaze News about the latest abortion bill making its way through the Massachusetts legislature. Lyons, a former state representative and past chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, added, "And it has to stop."

A long-standing line, one that most radical abortion legislation rarely crosses, is viability outside the womb. The rate of survival for a baby born during the 23rd week of pregnancy is 23%-27%, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. At 24 weeks the survival rate jumps dramatically to 42%-59%.

'The legislation promises that an already ominous shadow will grow even darker over the state.'

Democrats in the Massachusetts House overwhelmingly passed a bill in a 199-33 vote on Wednesday that would greatly expand abortion access past 24 weeks, effectively making it open season on viable human beings.

Advocates for the unborn have emphasized the extreme nature of this legislation and called for the state Senate to kill it outright.

Massachusetts law currently prohibits abortion past 24 weeks unless executed by a doctor who has determined it is necessary to preserve the life of the mother; necessary to preserve the mother'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."

The bill recently passed by the House, H. 5595, would scrap these requirements for late-term abortions, enabling an abortion to be committed against a preborn baby past 24 weeks solely "based upon the professional judgment of the physician."

H. 5595 would also change state law to bar any medical review process from overriding the decision by a doctor and patient to execute a late-term abortion, and would eliminate the requirement that except in an emergency situation, late-term abortions must be performed "in a hospital duly authorized to provide facilities for obstetrical services."

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Lyons further told Blaze News, "It is absolutely unconscionable what these people are doing in Massachusetts."

He then noted that this is the latest in a sequence of radical pro-abortion maneuvers, including:

• the 2020 Roe Act, which not only codified abortion rights into state law, enabled abortions after 24 weeks with the now-threatened restrictions, and lowered the age at which women can seek abortion without the consent of a parent or judge, but scrapped a provision in state law that required doctors to "take all reasonable steps ... to preserve the life and health of the aborted child" if the baby survived the attempted abortion; and
• Gov. Maura Healey's (D) taxpayer-funded initiative to attack crisis pregnancy centers, which she complained were dissuading women from getting abortions.

"The reason that they're getting away with it is because the Massachusetts legislature is dominated by radical leftists, and they unfortunately have done everything they can possibly do to silence any opposition," said Lyons, who changed parties from Democrat to Republican in 1983 in part because of President Ronald Reagan but also because "there was no question about it that the Democratic Party was being taken over ... by the radical left."

Democratic state Rep. Christine Barber, a radical leftist with endorsements by Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Equity Now, told the Boston Globe that the late-term abortion bill is aimed at sparing residents from the inconvenience of having to travel out of state to kill their preborn children.

"Patients have to leave to other states, leave their support network, and pay out of pocket," Barber said. "You should be able to get care that your doctors are recommending here in Massachusetts."

'The fight is not over.'

Barber cited as an example the trip that one resident, Kate Dineen, made to Maryland in 2022 to kill her 33-week-old baby. The boy suffered a stroke in utero and was reportedly given a 50% chance of dying before delivery. Dineen had a Maryland abortionist administer a lethal injection to the boy, whose remains she later delivered in Boston.

Reproductive Equity Now, an organization that has also used the out-of-state execution of Dineen's baby to promote this legislation, celebrated the passage of H. 5595.

Claire Teylouni, interim co-executive director of the pro-abortion group, stated, "We are thrilled to see the Massachusetts House of Representatives take this crucial step to expand abortion access across the Commonwealth."

Advocates for the unborn alternatively condemned Democrats' campaign against the preborn.

Fr. Daniel Pacholec, direct of the Respect Life Office for the Catholic Diocese of Springfield, noted, "Massachusetts already has one of the most progressive abortion laws in the country, and this goes even further. This should make everyone squeamish. This is not a partisan issue. This is about human decency."

Massachusetts Citizens for Life noted that "the bill passed despite the concerns of thousands of Massachusetts residents who contacted legislators and shared their opposition, and despite the fact that it would allow unborn children who are capable of feeling pain and surviving outside the womb to be killed."

"Women experiencing unimaginable, heart-wrenching pregnancy complications absolutely deserve all the support they need, but that support is not what this bill provides," said Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of MCFL, in a statement shared by the diocese. "Instead, this bill ensures increased abortion industry profits and taxpayer-funded late-term procedures. The legislation promises that an already ominous shadow will grow even darker over the state of Massachusetts."

The MCFL has stressed that "the fight is not over" and urged Bay Staters to urge their state senators to oppose the version before them now, S.1563.

The Massachusetts Family Institute has also condemned the bill, noting that it would "end virtually all abortion restrictions in Massachusetts, allowing abortion at full term with no medical justification or second opinion required — for any reason, or none at all."

When asked whether the goal of this and related legislation is to make the Bay State a national abortion destination, Lyons told Blaze News, "It certainly seems that way. And as a matter of fact, the Shield Act that was put in place was a direct result of the pressure that they were seeing outside of Massachusetts to let people know you can come here and we will protect you."

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