Pro-lifers are hopeful that there can be some progress made to protect preborn babies with a pro-life administration taking office in January. For pro-abortion advocates, it seems to be reason to panic. And Boston Mayor Martin Walsh is promising that he will keep Boston an abortion-friendly city.
Walsh spoke about the possibility of Trump working to overturn Roe v. Wade by appointing pro-life Supreme Court justices. Contrary to popular opinion, overturning Roe would not make abortion illegal nationwide; it would just no longer make abortion a constitutional right, and the legality of abortion would fall back to the states to decide. And Walsh is prepared for that possibility.
“I think a lot of the clinics would probably look to cities like Boston to come to — safe cities, cities that are open and progressive and understand the importance of having access,” Walsh said in an interview with Herald Radio. “That is something I am sure we will be focusing on as we move forward in the next weeks and months.”
Trump has promised that overturning Roe is something that his administration will work towards, and said that doing so would mean that some women would have to go to another state to get an abortion, something that Walsh is not pleased about, calling the idea “absurd.”
“I am not going to stand for his rhetoric on this stuff. A lot of damage could be done to this country if Candidate Trump shows up as President Trump,” he said. “This is 2016; I can’t believe we are having this conversation as front and center as it is. So there is a lot at stake here.”
He also promised to keep abortion laws in Boston lax. He spoke about protecting women’s rights, saying there were steps Boston could take, such as “working with the legislature to make sure the laws don’t get weakened. Working with health centers to make sure that, if there’s there’s threats of cutting back federal funding to those health centers for any type of reproductive rights, working with all the health centers in the city of Boston to make sure there is an open-door policy,” he explained. “We have it now, but whatever we can do, making sure our public health commissioner is on top of the issue as well.”
Boston — and Massachusetts in general — has very permissive laws regarding abortion as it is. While not as permissive as New York, other nearby states, like Pennsylvania, have stricter requirements. Massachusetts does not require any wait times, and while parental permission is required for a minor to get an abortion, judicial bypasses are available.
