Maine’s radical law providing more protection for doctors recommending late-term abortions now in effect

A new Maine law touted as compassionate toward women will actually provide greater protection for doctors who recommend late-term abortions.

It also essentially allows for abortion “for any reason at any point in pregnancy,” says former Planned Parenthood director-turned pro-life activist Abby Johnson about the law that took effect Wednesday.

Johnson spoke to The Lion about the measure, LD 1619, which she says contains “no parameters for what a physician deems a ‘necessary’ reason for such a barbaric procedure, leaving the door wide open for abortion on demand for any reason.”

The legislation, dubbed by Democrats and abortion activists “An Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws,” states:

“After viability, an abortion may be performed only when it is necessary in the professional judgment of a physician licensed pursuant to Title 32, chapter 36 or 48. The physician shall apply the applicable standard of care in making a professional judgment under this subsection.” 

But critics are saying the bill “goes too far, allowing a major expansion of abortions and putting too much trust in doctors to say when the procedure is appropriate,” the AP reported. 

AP also noted that only Maine, six other states – Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont – and Washington, D.C., allow unfettered access to abortion at any time during pregnancy via a doctor’s recommendation. 

“This is a terrible law for both babies and their mothers,” Johnson said. “A late-term abortion is an exceptionally brutal, multi-day procedure where either the baby is killed via injection through the womb and delivered, or dismembered and then delivered.  

“Women deserve better than abortion and many, many organizations in our country are ready and willing to help them to choose life.” 

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed the new legislation into law in July.  

“Current Maine law allows for abortion later in pregnancy only to preserve the life or health of the mother, but this standard – that we are about to change – fails to address the varied and very difficult circumstances faced by some women in their pregnancies,” Mills said during the signing ceremony, reported by The Maine Wire. 

The governor criticized the legislation’s opponents who called it “extreme” and “barbaric.” 

“What is extreme is forcing a woman to give birth to a child that is going to immediately die,” Mills claimed. “What is extreme is forcing a woman to leave her state to seek care.” 

It is a stunning reversal for Mills, who claimed during a campaign debate for re-election in 2022, “I have no plans to change the current law,” the Wire observed. 

Democrats in the state Legislature and pro-abortion activists, however, used the case of Yarmouth resident Dana Pierce, who decided to abort her son Cameron at 32 weeks of what she said was a “seemingly healthy pregnancy,” after she was told the baby “had a rare and lethal form of skeletal dysplasia” and had “multiple broken bones.” 

In a statement attached to Mills’ official press release about the signing of the legislation, Pierce said she was told then that Cameron, “if he survived until delivery … would not have been able to breathe outside of me.” 

Pierce said Maine’s restrictions on late-term abortions prevented her from having the procedure, leading her to make the decision to spend $40,000 to travel to Colorado to have an abortion to “end our son’s suffering.” 

The governor then made Pierce’s story the focal point of her about-face on the state’s abortion laws. 

Regardless of how Mills, her fellow Democrats, and the abortion lobby attempt to soften the reality of late-term abortion, the procedure, Johnson says, is not only “brutal,” but unpopular. 

“Only 10% of voters believe abortion should be legal at any point in pregnancy,” said the pro-life leader, who is also the founder of And Then There Were None, a ministry that has helped more than 630 abortion workers leave the industry. 

“Maine’s law is not only horrific but wildly unpopular with the vast majority of voters.”