The signature-gathering campaign this fall was supported by all four Catholic diocesan bishops in the state, who encouraged pastors to allow pro-lifers to ask churchgoers at Sunday Masses.
Organizers of a grassroots petition drive to stop Massachusetts’ new unrestricted abortion law claim to have enough signatures to put the measure before voters in November 2028.
The group spearheading the effort said it already had 97,276 certified signatures of registered voters as of midday Thursday, Oct. 29, about 160% more than the 37,289 needed to challenge the bill the state Legislature approved this past summer, the group said.
That figure is also theoretically enough to suspend the law from taking effect Sunday, Nov. 8, as currently scheduled — since pro-lifers say they have exceeded the 49,716 threshold to accomplish that.
But that’s unlikely to happen.
Gov. Maura Healy, who signed the bill Aug. 10 during a festive ceremony at the State House, can override that suspension and enact the law by attaching an emergency preamble to it upon, in the Massachusetts Constitution’s words, “declaring that in [her] opinion the immediate preservation of the public health, safety or convenience requires that such law should take effect forthwith and that it is an emergency law and setting forth the facts constituting the emergency.”
The Compassionate Care Coalition, which led the signature-gathering drive, on Thursday called on Healey not to add the emergency preamble.
“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, the coalition’s chairman, in a written statement. “We are grateful to every volunteer, pastor and parish staffer who carried a clipboard. Because of them, voters will have the final say.”
A spokesman of the governor could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.
The signature-gathering campaign this fall was supported by all four Catholic diocesan bishops in the state, who encouraged pastors to allow pro-lifers to ask churchgoers at Sunday Masses.
The statute currently in effect in Massachusetts, which was amended in 2020, bans abortions after 24 weeks, with several exceptions: to save the life or the “physical or mental health” of the mother or if “the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside the uterus.”
The new statute set to take effect Nov. 8 deletes those exceptions for third-trimester abortions, stating instead that abortions at any time in pregnancy “may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”
Supporters of the all-nine-months bill say abortion-minded women who encounter difficult circumstances late in their pregnancies, including a late diagnosis of what the current statute calls a “lethal fetal anomaly,” have encountered resistance to getting an abortion in Massachusetts and have been forced to travel out of state if they want to get one.
“We’re going to make sure women in particular are able to make their own healthcare decisions, not the government,” Healey said during the press conference Aug. 10.
“Abortion will remain safe, it will remain legal, and it will remain accessible here in Massachusetts. That’s my commitment to you,” Healey said.
Opponents of the bill describe it as extreme, noting that the state already allows third-trimester abortions in certain difficult situations.
“This is the entire removal of that one last singular protection Massachusetts offered to an unborn child old enough to survive healthily outside the womb,” Miele said during an event Thursday in the Great Hall of the Massachusetts State House, according to a video on the Massachusetts Citizens for Life’s Facebook page.
Massachusetts Citizens for Life displayed models of 49,450 fetuses during the event, which is the number of legal abortions the state Department of Public Health says took place in Massachusetts in 2024.
Said Myrna Maloney Flynn, president and chief executive officer of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, “We’re not trying to take freedoms away. We’re not trying to deny anyone their rights. We’re trying to actually preserve the right to life.”
