Massachusetts’ “Catholic” governor uses emergency powers to enact an unrestricted abortion law, ignoring a popular challenge
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey invoked emergency powers to put into effect a law removing the state’s remaining restrictions on late-term abortions. The move prevents opponents from temporarily blocking the law through a citizens’ petition, despite their reported collection of more than 112,000 signatures. Massachusetts Catholic bishops strongly criticized both the law and Healey’s use of her Catholic faith to justify her position.
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Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey invoked emergency powers on November 6 to put Chapter 188 into effect immediately, while a citizens’ petition seeking to suspend the law had reportedly gathered about 112,000 signatures. The change removes the state’s prior limits on later abortions; Healey says it is needed to prevent delays in medical care, while the state’s Catholic bishops and anti-abortion advocates dispute both the law and the justification for bypassing the suspension process.
Healey signed Chapter 188 on August 10. Before her emergency declaration, the petition campaign could have suspended the law while the measure proceeded toward a possible statewide referendum.
Under the previous law, abortion was permitted up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, with later abortions allowed in specified circumstances involving the mother’s life or physical or mental health, or when the fetus could not survive outside the womb. Chapter 188 removes those restrictions, allowing a physician to perform an abortion at any stage of pregnancy according to professional judgment.
The petition organizers said they had collected approximately 112,000 signatures—more than twice the number required to suspend the measure and nearly three times the threshold for placing it on the November 2028 ballot. The Secretary of State’s office said signature certification could take one to two weeks; the referendum effort may continue, but the law is in effect in the meantime.
Healey said the prior exceptions were too narrowly defined to cover the range of serious complications that can arise late in pregnancy. She argued that uncertainty about how the law should be interpreted, and differences among hospitals and their legal advisers, could delay treatment and endanger patients.
Healey also referred to her Catholic faith, saying it had shaped her understanding of service, compassion and human dignity. She argued that her responsibilities as governor include respecting families’ deeply personal medical decisions and differing beliefs.
In a November 7 statement, the four Catholic bishops leading Massachusetts dioceses rejected describing abortion as healthcare and disputed that an emergency justified the expansion. They cited the Church’s defense of unborn life and Pope Leo XIV’s remarks that unborn children belong to the human family and deserve protection.
The bishops also warned against what they called an increasingly utilitarian approach to human life, saying it could threaten other vulnerable people, including the elderly and sick.
Healey was re-elected on November 3, defeating Republican challenger Mike Minogue by 62% to 35%. Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, accused Healey of disregarding more than 100,000 constituents and said no genuine emergency had been shown to justify bypassing the petition process.
Healey has said the referendum campaign can proceed and that the state will respect voters’ decision if they reject the law. Whether voters will overturn Chapter 188 in 2028 remains unresolved; until then, the law remains in force.
Catholic moral theology on abortion and political authority
Catholic moral theology holds that direct abortion—the deliberate killing of an unborn human being, whether chosen as an end or as a means—is gravely wrong and cannot be made morally licit by a difficult circumstance, a popular vote, or civil law. Political authority therefore has a duty to protect unborn life, but Catholics must pursue that duty within a broader commitment to the common good: resisting laws that authorize abortion, supporting practical help for mothers and families, and addressing other serious threats to human dignity without treating them as morally interchangeable with the direct killing of the innocent.
The Church’s judgment does not depend on whether civil law recognizes the unborn child as a legal person. Evangelium Vitae teaches that human life is sacred and inviolable from its beginning, and that the commandment against killing therefore applies to the unborn. It also states that Christian opposition to abortion has been consistent from the early Church onward.
The moral object matters: direct abortion is an act in which the death of the unborn child is intended, either as the goal or as a means to another goal. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, quoting Evangelium Vitae, says that no circumstance, purpose, or law can make such an act licit. Serious and tragic reasons—including fears about health or family hardship—do not justify deliberately killing an innocent human being. This concerns the morality of the act itself; it does not mean that every person involved bears equal responsibility or that the anguish and constraints surrounding a particular decision should be minimized.
A related distinction is between direct abortion and medical treatment that is not itself abortive but may foreseeably cause the unborn child’s death as an unintended side effect. The cited CDF text distinguishes a procedure that directly causes fetal death from a procedure directed at treating the mother’s condition, where the child’s death is not desired or intended but may be an unavoidable collateral consequence. The moral assessment of a concrete medical case therefore depends on what the procedure does and what is intended, not merely on whether the child dies.
Political authority exists to serve the common good, not simply to enact whatever a majority prefers. Catholic teaching, as summarized in the supplied scholarly treatment, holds that human law is law in the fullest sense insofar as it accords with right reason; when it departs from reason and justice, it becomes unjust. A law cannot make a morally wrongful act right merely by permitting it.
This is why the Church describes laws authorizing abortion as profoundly unjust: they fail to protect the life and equality of a vulnerable class of human beings. The CDF notes that when civil law withholds protection from a category of human beings, the state undermines equality before the law and the foundations of a state governed by law. The US bishops likewise call abortion laws profoundly unjust and support legal protections for unborn life, while also advocating assistance for pregnant women, children, and families.
That judgment does not mean that every political question has one uniquely required legal solution, or that law is the only means of protecting life. John Paul II recognizes that laws have an important influence on social attitudes and conduct, but also urges political leaders to address the conditions that make attacks on life more likely, including inadequate support for families and motherhood. Political responsibility therefore includes both opposing unjust permission and building social conditions in which women and families can welcome and care for children.
For lawmakers, the basic obligation is clear: they must not promote or vote for legislation that authorizes abortion. Evangelium Vitae says there is no obligation in conscience to obey laws that claim to legitimize abortion and that there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them. It also says that it is never licit to take part in a campaign in favor of such a law or to vote for it. The CDF’s document on Catholics’ participation in political life reiterates that those involved in lawmaking have a grave obligation to oppose laws attacking human life.
The teaching also addresses an important difficult case: an abortion-permitting law is already in force, and complete repeal is not presently achievable. In that situation, a public official whose absolute personal opposition to abortion is known may support a proposal that genuinely limits the harm of the existing law and reduces its negative effects. The Church describes this not as endorsing the unjust law, but as a legitimate effort to restrict its evil consequences. The permission is therefore limited and harm-reducing; it is not a general license to support abortion legislation because it contains some restrictions or because political compromise is desirable.
For voters, the principles require careful judgment rather than an automatic party-based rule. The Church’s teaching does not say that abortion is the only issue relevant to the common good. The CDF warns against isolating one aspect of Catholic social teaching to the neglect of the whole, and says that a well-formed Christian conscience cannot support a political program or individual law that contradicts fundamental matters of faith and morals. At the same time, the US bishops warn against a false moral equivalence: direct and intentional destruction of innocent life is not simply one issue among many, even though other grave issues also demand serious Catholic engagement. The proper task is to assess candidates and policies in light of the full moral teaching of the Church, while recognizing the particular gravity of laws that directly authorize abortion.
Catholics owe respect and ordinary obedience to legitimate civil authority, but political authority is not absolute. When law commands or legitimizes what is intrinsically unjust, conscience does not require submission to that injustice. John Paul II grounds resistance in obedience to God and specifically calls for conscientious opposition to abortion laws. That resistance should be directed toward protecting life and correcting injustice; the cited teaching does not supply a detailed prescription for every form of civil disobedience or every legal situation, so those practical judgments require prudent discernment.
Nor is defending unborn life equivalent to imposing a specifically religious doctrine through the state. The supplied Catholic social teaching discusses the relation between civil law, the common good, and moral truth, and frames protection of life as a matter of justice and the rights of vulnerable human beings. The political argument is that public authority must protect human life and equal rights, not that every citizen must share Catholic faith.
Taken together, these principles call Catholics to oppose the direct killing of the unborn and laws that authorize it, while working for policies that support mothers, children, and families. They also require proportionate moral judgment: distinguish direct abortion from unintended side effects of legitimate treatment; distinguish an attempt to restrict an unjust law from support for it; and distinguish the special gravity of abortion from the broader duty to defend human dignity across the whole range of public life.