Decisions about abortion care belong to a patient and their doctor. No one else. That is why I filed a bill called An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care.
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed it, reaffirming our commitment to the rights and health of every resident of the Commonwealth.
The federal government has attacked reproductive rights at every opening. The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The Trump administration has cut funding with devastating consequences. Even Food and Drug Administration-approved medications face constant legal volatility.
Through all of it, Massachusetts has answered. The Roe Act was the product of years of organizing, and when the death of justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put abortion rights in jeopardy, we were ready. I voted to pass the Roe Act in December 2020, codifying abortion into state law so that no matter what happened in Washington, the rights of Massachusetts residents would stand.
When the Dobbs decision came down June 24, 2022, I organized legislators to speak on the House floor for the Shield Act, which protects providers and patients here and those traveling to Massachusetts for abortion care, and eliminated cost sharing for reproductive health care.
We recently marked four years since Dobbs. Four years later, the work is not finished. Patients and clinicians have told me directly that our laws still fail some of the people who need them most. Because of legal ambiguity in an exceptions-based framework, dozens of women in Massachusetts are denied care every year, care their own doctor says they need.
When Kate Dineen’s son suffered a catastrophic stroke in utero at 33 weeks, her doctor told her that she would be able to explore termination only if she had the ability to travel out of state. Because there was a chance her son would survive for some time, her case did not qualify for the “lethal” fetal anomaly exception in place at the time. Her doctor’s hands were tied by state law. Kate and her husband had to drive 1,000 miles and pay $10,000 out of pocket to get compassionate abortion care at a clinic in Maryland.
That should never happen in our commonwealth. Pregnancy is complex, and no list of statutory exceptions written by legislators can anticipate every clinical reality. No one is more qualified to make a deeply personal medical decision than a patient and their doctor.
My bill, H.5595, replaces a narrow checklist of exceptions with a single standard: a physician’s professional judgment. Doctors get to use their full training and expertise to determine what their patient needs, instead of measuring her circumstances against a fixed list written on Beacon Hill.
I filed this bill for the women still being denied care every year. The ones forced to travel a thousand miles while pregnant, far from the doctors who know them and the people who love them, paying costs most families cannot bear.
I filed it for the patients who cannot travel at all.
Plenty of people say they are pro-choice. Saying it protects no one. A value that is not written into law does not help a patient in a hospital room being told her doctor cannot treat her. That is the difference. I don’t just hold these values. I write them into law.
The bill now heads to the Senate, and I will keep fighting until it reaches the governor’s desk. In Massachusetts, you should be able to get the care your doctor recommends. That is what this vote delivered. And I am not done.
The writer is representative for the 34th Middlesex District, which includes includes parts of Somerville and Medford. She has held the the office since 2015.
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