Anyone who has held a newborn understands the instinct to protect that tiny life.
The wonder is immediate, which is why the idea of deliberately ending a child’s life near delivery strikes millions of Americans as not merely controversial, but morally grotesque.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has now signed legislation that critics say permits abortion throughout pregnancy, including near the moment of birth, as reported by PJ Media.
That makes Massachusetts the eleventh state, according to the cited advocates, to allow abortion under standards broad enough to reach the final stage of pregnancy.
At nine months, viability is not an abstract medical debate.
The child is fully capable of living outside the womb, and the decisive legal question under this framework can rest on the wishes of the mother and the professional judgment of the physician performing the abortion.
That is not the tidy story offered by abortion lobby public relations teams. They prefer sterile language about access and protection, because plain English would force voters to confront what happens to a developed child when an abortion is performed so late.
The new law removes the previous limit that generally restricted legal abortions after 24 weeks, with limited exceptions.
It permits an elective abortion later in pregnancy when the physician determines it is appropriate, handing extraordinary authority to the same person who stands to carry out the procedure.
That arrangement deserves scrutiny, not applause.
A safeguard is not much of a safeguard when the person making the judgment is also the provider performing the abortion, yet Massachusetts Democrats treated the signing ceremony like another triumphant stop on the progressive social agenda.
The details of later abortions are brutal, which is precisely why abortion advocates often hide behind euphemisms.
Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America says procedures in the second and third trimesters can involve dismemberment or induced labor, and it cites research estimating that more than 60,000 abortions occur after 15 weeks each year.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America, said, “It should shock the conscience that tens of thousands of unborn Americans are barbarically dismembered limb by limb and torn apart every single year. Sadly, that number will only increase with Gov. Healey’s approval of the Abortion Up Until Birth Bill.”
The image of Democratic officials smiling around Healey only deepened the revulsion.
Some of those celebrating are mothers themselves, and Americans are entitled to ask how anyone who has cradled a newborn can endorse a legal structure that leaves a fully developed unborn child exposed to intentional destruction.
The press predictably reached for its favorite verbal camouflage.
CBS News described the measure as legislation to “strengthen abortion protections,” while Boston.com called it an expansion of “abortion rights,” phrases that carefully avoid describing which human being receives no protection at all.
The measure is titled the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, another polished label designed to make radical policy sound administrative and compassionate.
The Massachusetts House passed it by a vote of 119 to 33 in July, showing this was no narrow or reluctant decision.
Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, warned, “This law exposes the dishonesty behind the claim that no one supports abortion until birth. When lawmakers remove every objective limitation and authorize an abortion provider to decide whether an abortion may be performed at any point in pregnancy, abortion until birth is precisely what the law allows.”
Supporters will insist that doctors deserve discretion and that hard cases require flexibility.
But when a law abandons objective limits and leaves the final call to an abortion provider, skepticism is not extremism; it is the minimum response expected from citizens who still recognize unborn children as human beings.
Healey and her allies can celebrate their signatures, polished talking points, and friendly headlines.
They cannot erase the moral reality behind the language, or the disturbing fact that modern Democrats keep pushing abortion policy toward the most radical boundary imaginable while calling the result health care.
