The Compassionate Care Coalition said Thursday it had gathered enough signatures to put Massachusetts’ new unrestricted abortion law before voters in November 2028.
“The people of Massachusetts did not ask for abortion through all nine months, and in a matter of weeks they made that clear,” said Sam Miele, the coalition’s chairman, in a written statement. “We are grateful to every volunteer, pastor and parish staffer who carried a clipboard. Because of them, voters will have the final say.”
The coalition said it had 97,276 certified signatures of registered voters as of midday Thursday, Oct. 29, about 160% more than the 37,289 needed to challenge the bill the state Legislature approved this past summer. The group said that figure is also theoretically enough to suspend the law from taking effect Sunday, Nov. 8, as currently scheduled, since pro-lifers say they have exceeded the 49,716 threshold needed to accomplish that.
Governor Maura Healey signed the bill Aug. 10 during a festive ceremony at the State House, and she can override the suspension by attaching an emergency preamble, which the Massachusetts Constitution allows upon “declaring that in [her] opinion the immediate preservation of the public health, safety or convenience requires that such law should take effect forthwith and that it is an emergency law and setting forth the facts constituting the emergency.”
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“We’re going to make sure women in particular are able to make their own healthcare decisions, not the government,” Healey said during the press conference Aug. 10. “Abortion will remain safe, it will remain legal, and it will remain accessible here in Massachusetts. That’s my commitment to you.”
All four Catholic diocesan bishops in the state backed the signature drive this fall, and encouraged pastors to let pro-life volunteers petition churchgoers at Sunday Masses. The new statute set to take effect Nov. 8 deletes exceptions for third-trimester abortions that exist under the current law, amended in 2020, which bans abortions after 24 weeks except to save the mother’s life or health or if the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside the uterus.
“This is the entire removal of that one last singular protection Massachusetts offered to an unborn child old enough to survive healthily outside the womb,” Miele said during an event Thursday in the Great Hall of the Massachusetts State House, according to a video on Massachusetts Citizens for Life’s Facebook page. Myrna Maloney Flynn, president and chief executive officer of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said, “We’re not trying to take freedoms away. We’re not trying to deny anyone their rights. We’re trying to actually preserve the right to life.”
American Faith will follow whether Gov. Healey attaches an emergency preamble before the Nov. 8 effective date, and what that means for the suspension pro-lifers say they’ve already triggered. subscribe to AmericanFaith.
National Catholic Register first reported the story.
This article originally appeared on American Faith and is reposted with permission.
