Massachusetts Enacts Abortion Until Birth

I know what this is about. It's a theatrical stunt so Mass can grab the podium spot for most liberal state. Just wait...Minn, Calif and NY aren't going to take this lying down. The Fat Lady hasn't sung yet.

Massachusetts Enacts Abortion Until Birth

Gov. Maura Healey shows that there are extremists on both sides of the issue.

By Emma Camp, WSJ

Aug. 14, 2026 4:11 pm ET

Democrats have a habit of enacting abortion laws that are extreme by any reasonable definition, and then feigning shock if you care to point this out.

This week Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed an expansive new law that effectively eliminates the state’s restrictions on postviability abortion. Under current law, abortion is unlawful after 24 weeks unless the mother’s life or health is at risk or the unborn child has been diagnosed with a fatal birth defect. The new law, which takes effect in November, allows abortion at any time, for any reason, subject only to the “professional judgment” of a physician that it is necessary.

Critics of lax abortion laws are generally regarded as hysterics. The line goes that women only get late-term abortions for devastating fetal diagnoses. No one would ever abort a viable, healthy baby. Being worried about a law that would make such a thing perfectly legal is a pointless distraction.

But if women get late-term abortions only because of a tragic diagnosis, current Massachusetts law more than accommodates them. Further, the claim that women get third-trimester abortions only for severe fetal abnormalities is simply wrong. While the available data isn’t great—late-term abortions are a tiny portion of the overall abortion rate—one doctor who specializes in late-term abortions told the Atlantic in 2023 that about half his patients have healthy babies.

Democrats want it both ways—to pass laws with the explicit intent of allowing elective abortion at any point in pregnancy, and to deny that these laws could possibly have that effect. During a 2024 presidential debate, Kamala Harris insisted that Roe v. Wade didn’t allow for abortions in the final months of pregnancy—even though it did. That decision banned states from restricting abortion before viability, leaving them free to allow it after.

So why do Democrats keep supporting extreme abortion laws? Not because Democratic voters are desperate for greater access to postviability abortion. A 2024 poll found that most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, wanted abortion to be legal up until a certain point in pregnancy, then restricted later.

Gestational limits on abortion are common in other Western countries. In Europe, elective abortion is typically limited to the first trimester. The idea that the only way to protect women’s rights is to allow abortion at any time in pregnancy, under any circumstances, is an almost uniquely American one born out of a distinctly American legal and policy fight. It’s easy to call Republicans pro-life radicals, but Democrats can be just as extreme.

Ms. Camp is a senior newsletter editor at WSJ Opinion’s Free Expression.