A Maine law removing virtually all protections for preborn children has taken effect.
Earlier this summer, Governor Janet Mills signed into law LD 1619, which allows abortion until birth for any reason. The law went into place 90 days after her signature. “Maine is following best medical practice by modernizing our laws to get politicians out of reproductive health care and to make clear that the difficult decision of whether to have an abortion later in pregnancy will be made by a woman and her doctor, not anyone else,” Mills said before signing the bill. “We must recognize the complexity of pregnancy. And like every other health care procedure, we’ve got to take government out of the decision-making process and put the doctor and the patient in charge.”
Yet induced abortion, the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child, is not health care.
Under the new law, preborn children diagnosed with a disability or abnormality can be subjected to a late abortion so long as a physician claims the abortion is “necessary.” In a massive conflict of interest, the abortionist committing the procedure can be the physician who vouches for its necessity; considering how much money abortionists make on later abortions, they would have a lot to lose by saying the abortion is not needed.
Nicole Clegg of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England told WGME they are thrilled about the new law allowing the killing of preborn children at any time, well past when they can survive outside the womb. Dodging the real issue, Clegg said, “Let’s be clear. Opponents to abortion want to ban abortion in all circumstances. We’ve seen that in other states in the country,” she said. “Pregnant people that make the decision to end a pregnancy are thoughtful, caring people that are making the best decision for themselves and their family.”
Mike McClellan, policy director for the Christian Civic League of Maine, said the legislation was not necessary, even for Dana Pierce, a Maine resident who traveled to Colorado to end her preborn son’s “suffering.” Her son, Cameron, was diagnosed with skeletal dysplasia, a rare gene mutation causing issues with bone growth. Though roughly half of babies with this condition do not survive longer than six weeks after birth, some can go on to live what The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) calls “relatively normal lives.”
“The stories used to justify this overreach were sad, even tragic,” McClellan told the Portland Press Herald. “The reality was that current Maine law would have sufficed in these cases.”
In another statement to the Portland Press Herald earlier this year, he reiterated that abortion is not health care, and that Maine residents don’t support such extremism. “I heard the words health care, health and safety mentioned a lot, but this is abortion, that’s the opposite of safety, the opposite of health,” he said. “It’s ironic. Some of the truths that I hear them say, well, they aren’t my truths, not my reality. They aren’t truths for most people in Maine.”
