Dem Gov Maura Healey signs sweeping Massachusetts bill allowing abortions up to birth

ten states with no gestational limit on abortion at all. Not twenty weeks, not viability, nothing. Maura Healey signed it, framed it as protecting access, and the press release language did what it always does, treating "up to birth" as a technicality rather than the headline.

Here's the thing that gets lost when a bill like this passes on a Tuesday and the news cycle moves on by Wednesday: removing a gestational limit isn't really about the rare, tragic cases proponents always lead with. Those cases were already handled under most existing law through health exceptions. What this does is take the limit away entirely, as a matter of policy, for everyone. That's a much bigger step than "keeping abortion legal," and treating it as a routine extension of Roe-era protections is doing a lot of work to avoid saying what actually changed.

Healey's line about safe, legal and accessible is a talking point, not a description of what a third-trimester procedure with no restriction looks like in practice. Most Americans, including plenty who call themselves pro-choice, think there should be some line somewhere before birth. Massachusetts just told them there isn't one anymore, and dared anyone to make an issue of it.