Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed legislation Monday eliminating the state’s specific legal restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks, replacing them with one remarkably broad standard: the professional judgment of the physician performing the procedure.
The Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act takes effect in 90 days and places Massachusetts among a small group of states without a statutory gestational-age limit on abortion.
The operative language is brief and consequential:
“An abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”
Previously, Massachusetts generally allowed abortion during the first 24 weeks. After that point, a doctor had to determine that the procedure was necessary to preserve the patient’s life or physical or mental health, or that the fetus suffered from a lethal anomaly or was unlikely to survive outside the womb.
The new law removes that list of qualifying circumstances. Supporters say doctors will still operate under professional standards of care and insist that abortions late in pregnancy overwhelmingly involve devastating medical complications—not casual, last-minute decisions.
But the statute itself no longer confines those procedures to a medical emergency, fatal diagnosis or nonviable pregnancy. That is why opponents accurately describe Massachusetts as having removed its gestational limit, even if supporters object to the politically loaded phrase “abortion up to birth.”
Healey signed the legislation surrounded by smiling and applauding supporters at the State House.
“We believe that health care decisions should be made between women and families and their doctors, not politicians,” the Democratic governor said. “Abortion will remain safe. It will remain legal, and it will remain accessible here in Massachusetts. That’s my commitment to you.”
Healey said the legislation was motivated by stories of families confronting tragic complications late in wanted pregnancies, only to learn that Massachusetts hospitals would not provide the requested abortions under the previous language.
“The bottom line for people in Massachusetts, if you care about women’s health, if you care about making sure that women are able to access the health care that they need in consultation with their doctors, should be clear,” she said. “I stand with women. My opponents do not.”
She also presented the law as a shield against President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans and future Supreme Court decisions.
“It is up to the states to lead,” Healey said. “No matter what Donald Trump or Republicans in Congress or the Supreme Court does, we’re going to continue to make sure that women and families have access to the health care that they need, right here in Massachusetts.”
That line offers the clearest picture of the post-Roe landscape: The Supreme Court returned abortion policy to elected governments, and Massachusetts Democrats used that authority to adopt one of the nation’s broadest laws.
The Healey administration said the measure is intended to help patients facing “devastating fetal diagnoses, serious pregnancy complications or other complex medical circumstances” receive timely treatment without legal uncertainty.
State Rep. Christine Barber, one of the bill’s sponsors, previously described a case involving a fetus that had suffered a stroke and was considered unlikely to survive. The patient reportedly could not obtain an abortion in Massachusetts and had to travel elsewhere.
The ACLU of Massachusetts applauded Healey for removing what it called unnecessary barriers.
“Abortion care is health care, and thanks to this new law, pregnant patients in Massachusetts will no longer have to travel far from their home state to access the care they need,” Executive Director Carol Rose said.
Major hospital systems, including Mass General Brigham and Beth Israel Lahey Health, also supported granting physicians more discretion.
Later abortions remain relatively uncommon. Massachusetts reported 99 abortions at 24 weeks or later in 2024, up from 84 in 2023, according to Department of Public Health figures reported by State House News Service.
That rarity, however, did not satisfy critics who argued that the law should say explicitly when a viable unborn child may be aborted—not simply leave the decision to whichever doctor agrees to perform it.
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser accused Healey of approving an extreme policy that could permit abortions throughout all nine months.
“It should shock the conscience that tens of thousands of unborn Americans are barbarically dismembered limb by limb and torn apart every single year,” Dannenfelser said. “Sadly, that number will only increase with Gov. Healey’s approval of the Abortion Up Until Birth Bill.”
Dannenfelser also challenged Republicans who argue that abortion policy should be left entirely to individual states.
“The GOP must abandon the ‘leave it to the states’ position—a stance that permits egregious late-term abortion laws like this one—and advance national protections for unborn children,” she said.
The measure passed the Massachusetts House 119–33 before clearing the Senate. In other words, this was no accidental loophole buried inside an appropriations package. Lawmakers debated the old restrictions and deliberately removed them.
The bill does not command doctors to perform late-term abortions. Nor does it prove that Massachusetts hospitals will begin terminating healthy, viable pregnancies moments before delivery. Physicians remain governed by medical ethics, licensing rules and standards of care.
But supporters cannot honestly dismiss the breadth of the statutory change, either.
The old law supplied four defined reasons for an abortion after 24 weeks. The new law supplies none. It gives the physician the final legal judgment and includes no express gestational ceiling, viability test, required fatal diagnosis or emergency standard.
“Most abortions this late involve tragedies” is an argument about expected practice. “The law restricts them to tragedies” is no longer true.
DBS WIRE SOURCES
- Fox News — Maura Healey signs sweeping Massachusetts abortion bill
- Massachusetts Legislature — H.5595, An Act prioritizing patient access to care
- NBC10 Boston — New abortion rules signed into law as Healey cites stories of heartache
- GBH — Healey cites stories of anguish and heartache while signing abortion law
- ACLU of Massachusetts — Statement supporting abortion-access legislation
- Associated Press — Massachusetts gives doctors final word on abortions later in pregnancy
- Axios Boston — House votes to ease Massachusetts late-term abortion restrictions
