Groundbreaking Massachusetts Law Protects Telemedicine Abortion Providers Serving Patients Located
(Thank you, Massachusetts, for caring about women. Excellent information at link)
Groundbreaking Massachusetts Law Protects Telemedicine Abortion Providers Serving Patients Located in States Banning Abortion
8/18/2022 by Carrie N. Baker
Reproductive Equity Now’s Government Affairs Director Claire Teylouni (third from right) joined the Legislature and Governor for a signing ceremony for the new Massachusetts abortion access law. (Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts)
Massachusetts passed a sweeping new reproductive rights law on July 29 with robust protections for healthcare workers who provide abortion services to patients living outside the state—both those who travel to Massachusetts for care, and those who receive care in their home states from Massachusetts providers via telemedicine. The Massachusetts law means women, girls, trans men and nonbinary people living in states with abortion bans can receive telemedicine abortion care from U.S. providers and obtain abortion pills promptly by mail, rather than having to order pills from outside of the country, which can take weeks. In addition to provider protections, the law removes cost barriers to abortion care, expands access to third-trimester abortions in cases of grave fetal diagnosis, increases access to emergency contraception and medication abortion, and guarantees the right to gender-affirming care.
“Today Massachusetts has made it indisputably clear: Our commonwealth will stand up to hostile attacks on life-saving and life-affirming healthcare,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of Reproductive Equity Now. The new law includes 11 recommendations from the Massachusetts Beyond Roe Agenda, an advocacy plan put forward by Reproductive Equity Now, the ACLU of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. The Beyond Roe Coalition launched the advocacy agenda in early May following the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. Advocates worked closely with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey to draft a strong law that will withstand a likely constitutional challenge from anti-abortion forces.
To shield healthcare providers from unjust attacks by anti-abortion states and advocates, the new law:
prohibits the extradition of Massachusetts providers who lawfully provide abortion care in Massachusetts to a resident of a different state where the procedure is illegal;
prevents Massachusetts law enforcement officers or employees from providing information or assistance to any federal or state law enforcement agency or private citizen in relation to an investigation or inquiry into protected reproductive healthcare services;
creates a new civil remedy for providers in Massachusetts to countersue if they are the subject of criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits filed by someone outside of the state, enabling them to recover an amount equal to the damages assessed in these out-of-state lawsuits;
protects providers’ professional licenses from any negative impacts of being sued by a resident of a state where abortion is illegal for providing legal abortion care in the Massachusetts; and
keeps malpractice insurance within reach for providers when they face out-of-state civil lawsuits for providing lawful abortion care in Massachusetts.
I want providers to feel like Massachusetts is standing with them and up for them.
Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of Reproductive Equity Now
. . .
After the law was signed, Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Massachusetts and met with lawmakers and advocates in Boston on August 4. At this meeting, Harris described Massachusetts as “a national model for protecting reproductive rights on the state level” and she encouraged the leaders to support state legislators across the country who are fighting for abortion protections.
“None of us could anticipate what the fall of Roe would feel like when it really happened,” said Hart Holder. “In a state like Massachusetts, the goal was to go big…to go bigger than we ever dreamed. And it worked. It paid off.”
https://msmagazine.com/2022/08/18/massachusetts-abortion-law/