Maine’s Senate has voted for a second time to pass a bill allowing abortion up to birth for any reason. It will now head to the desk of Gov. Janet Mills, who introduced the bill and is expected to sign it. Once signed, Maine will have one of the most expansive and extreme abortion laws in the nation.
The bill reportedly “changes the standard for when an abortion may be performed after viability to when a licensed physician determines that it is necessary instead of when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.” Yet, the bill also removes any penalties for committing an abortion without being licensed as a physician, physician assistant, or advanced practice registered nurse.
“It basically allows for the abortion of a baby in the third trimester for any reason whatsoever, with no guardrails except for a physician has to sign off that it’s necessary. Necessary for what purpose? They never really explain,” said Senator Eric Brakey.
Proponents of LD 1619 deny that abortion would be allowed for any reason, with Rep. Lois Reckitt arguing against Brakey, “That’s not true. I mean, what doctor are you ever going to find that would do that? Standards of care in the medical profession would never allow that to happen I want to trust the medical profession, and the women whose lives are at stake in this discussion, to do the right thing,” she said.
Yet, history shows that abortionists around the nation, including one with a dangerous history who threw her support behind Maine’s bill, are perfectly willing to commit abortions for any reason even into the second and third trimesters, essentially “rubber stamping” abortion for virtually any reason at all.
A study from the pro-abortion group ANSIRH states, “The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester… [T]he circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”
In addition, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute stated in 2016 that most late-term abortions are not medically necessary. That report revealed that at least 75% of abortions at and after 13 weeks were elective — meaning the mother chose to abort her baby after 13 weeks without any indication of a medical issue.
When Keisha Atkins, who died as a result of an abortion, went to Southwestern Women’s Options for that abortion at 24 weeks, abortionist Shannon Carr (the abortionist publicly advocating for Maine’s extreme abortion bill) noted on paperwork that the abortion was “necessary” in order to prevent “substantial and irreversible harm to her physical health, her mental health, her family health, her safety and well being.” Yet Carr had only spoken to Atkins for 20 minutes, and while questioned under oath regarding Atkins’ death, Carr said her assessment was simply “speculation of parenting at a young age as a single mom.”
Prior to this bill, Maine protected most preborn humans from abortion beginning at about 24 weeks, the supposed age of viability, with an unnecessary exception if the mother’s life were at risk. At the age of viability through birth, the child can be delivered without first being intentionally and directly killed through induced abortion.
Following a first round of legislative approval, the final vote from the Senate of 20-11 followed a previous Senate vote on June 27, 2023, of 21-13. That same day, the House voted to pass the bill 73-69.
Mills had introduced the bill in January allegedly as a response to the story of a Maine woman who traveled to Colorado for an abortion after learning at 32 weeks that her baby was not expected to survive long after birth. Dana Pierce explained in an essay fro the Portland Press Herald that her preborn son, named Cameron, was diagnosed with skeletal dysplasia, an issue with bone growth as the result of a rare gene mutation. About half of babies with this condition do not survive longer than six weeks after birth. Some, however, go on to live what The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) calls “relatively normal lives.” Sadly, some of Cameron’s bones had already broken in the womb and according to the doctor, his rib cage appeared too small. His parents decided to travel to Colorado for an abortion to ‘end their son’s suffering.’
Pierce underwent an induction abortion, in which an abortionist injected the drug digoxin into Cameron’s head or heart in order to cause cardiac arrest and death. Three days later, Pierce gave birth to stillborn Cameron.
Cameron’s mother said she received the diagnosis during a routine ultrasound, yet CHOP notes that a fetal CT scan reviewed by a multidisciplinary team is necessary for an accurate diagnosis as well as “improved parental counseling, pre-delivery planning and postnatal management.”
Once signed by Mills, Maine will allow such discriminatory abortions to take place through birth, and ultimately, no preborn child will be protected from abortion in the state.
