Maine Legislature Passes Bill Legalizing Abortions Up to Birth

Maine is about to become a late-term abortion state.

On Thursday, its Senate voted 20 to 11 on final passage of a bill that legalizes killing unborn babies in abortions up to birth, the Portland Press Herald reports. Democrat Gov. Janet Mills, who introduced the bill, likely will sign it next week.

“It is special interests, not Maine people, who the majority party are representing in Augusta,” said Karen Vachon, executive director of Maine Right to Life, in an email last week.

Thousands of pro-lifers showed up at the state Capitol in May to protest the late-term abortion bill. During one committee meeting, nearly 700 testified against the bill while only 65 testified in favor. Maine Right to Life, Catholic leaders and other pro-life organizations also urged lawmakers to reject the legislation, pointing to polls that consistently show strong public opposition to late-term abortions.

However, Democrats control the Maine Legislature, and Planned Parenthood, which dumps millions of dollars into elections, lobbied for the bill.

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On the House floor last week, state Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, accused the billion-dollar abortion chain of “whipping” lawmakers into submission when the bill almost failed to pass. She said a 30-minute recess to consider an amendment limiting late-term abortions to fatal fetal anomalies turned into five hours as lobbyists pressured lawmakers to vote for the bill without amendments.

“Planned Parenthood dictated to this body that [the amendment] would not be accepted,” Libby said. “We watched all day as representatives who might vote with us were followed out of this chamber and were whipped to vote for the bill. … [This] was about Planned Parenthood’s agenda to expand abortion in Maine to any time, for any reason.”

Abortion activists used eugenic, discriminatory arguments to make their case for allowing abortions on viable, pain-capable unborn babies. They claimed late-term abortion should be a “compassionate” option for families who learn their unborn baby has a serious or fatal health condition.

But the bill does not limit late-term abortions to fatal fetal anomalies. LD 1619 allows unborn babies to be aborted through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason an abortionist deems “necessary.” Currently, abortions are prohibited after 24 weeks.

According to the Bangor Daily News, pro-life advocates are considering a people’s veto campaign to overturn the legislation. Maine has a constitutional provision that allows citizens to repeal legislation through a petition initiative and ballot referendum.

Meanwhile, pro-abortion groups celebrated the final passage of the legislation.

Elayne Richard of Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights (GRR) told the Press Herald: “We are proud of the majority of our lawmakers for expressing their trust in pregnant Mainers, and for standing up to the intimidation and stigma of those who support forced pregnancy and birth. We who have been in this fight for half a century don’t plan to quit any time soon.”

Polls consistently show strong public opposition to late-term abortions. The vast majority of Americans recognize that babies in the womb should be protected, at the very least, once they are viable.

Research about late-term abortions indicates that viable unborn babies are aborted for elective reasons in states where the killing practice is legal.

A recent study from ANSIRH at the University of California found women have third-trimester abortions for a number of reasons: “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.”

A late-term abortionist in Colorado also admitted to The Atlantic this spring that he aborts viable, late-term unborn babies for basically any reason.

However, late-term abortions that kill viable unborn babies are never medically necessary, a fact confirmed by medical organizations that represent tens of thousands of doctors.

In 2019, they explained why:

After 20 weeks fertilization age, it is never necessary to intentionally kill the fetal human being in order to save a woman’s life. [5] In cases where the mother’s life actually is in danger in the latter half of pregnancy, there is not time for an abortion, because an abortion typically is a two to three-day process. Instead, immediate delivery is needed in these situations, and can be done in a medically appropriate way (labor induction or C-section) by the woman’s own physician. We can, and do, save the life of the mother through delivery of an intact infant in a hospital where both the mother and her newborn can receive the care that they need. There is no medical reason to intentionally kill that fetal human being through an inhumane abortion procedure, e.g. dismembering a living human being capable of feeling pain [6] [7] [8], or saline induction which burns off the skin, or feticide with subsequent induction.

There were 1,915 abortions reported in Maine in 2020, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

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