By Dave Andrusko
Massachusetts Citizens for Life is urging members to contact Gov. Charlie Baker and state legislators with the message, “Kill the bill, not the baby!” The radical abortion language is an amendment to the Fiscal 2021 budget.
As NRL News Today has reported, Gov. Baker, who is pro-choice, proposed two common sense changes to H. 5179, which were rejected by both the state House and Senate.
Yesterday the bill was finalized and sent to the governor to be signed or vetoed. He has ten days act on it. The last day of the legislative session is January 5, 2021 and cannot be extended.
Massachusetts Citizens for Life is asking its members to call Gov. Baker and insist that he veto the bill and to keep the pressure on members of the House to vote to sustain a veto. “If the governor vetoes the bill expanding abortion, it will go back for an override vote only to the House of Representatives, where it originated,” Massachusetts Citizens for Life explained.
Please call Governor Baker this week at 617-725-4005 and urge him to veto this bill (H.5179).
The abortion language is extreme by any measure.
It would allow for abortions at and after a 24-week period, if merely deemed “necessary, in the best medical judgment of the physician, to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health,” replacing the current more stringent standard that requires that “continuation of the pregnancy will impose on [the mother] a substantial risk of grave impairment to her” physical or mental health.
“In addition, abortions at and after 24 weeks are allowed if there is a ‘lethal fetal anomaly,’ or if the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside the uterus,” said Patricia Stewart, Executive Director of Massachusetts Citizens for Life. “However, “ she continued, “the term ‘lethal fetal anomaly’ is ambiguous and not defined, opening the door to massive abuse.”
The bill lowers the age at which teenage girls can obtain abortions without parental consent from 18 to 16. And perhaps, most concerning, according to Stewart, “in those instances in which a baby survives an abortion, the bill provides only that there must be ‘life-supporting equipment’ present in the room; it does not require the abortionist to actually use it. Without mandated use, infanticide becomes a legal option for the disposal of abortion survivors, like so much medical waste.”