A 9-week-old embryo. Photo credit: lunar caustic, CC BY 2.0

One thing we learned from this report is that Governor Maura Healey is a woman of her word.

"Whatever it takes, whatever we need to do as a state to support access to reproductive healthcare — to health care, which I think is a human right— we are going to do," she told a reporter last summer.

To fulfill her promise, the governor and her administration went above and beyond – well-beyond the state’s borders, as it turns out. In 2024, abortionists and those who prescribe chemical abortion sold procedures to more out-of-state women (27,836) than to women who live here (21,407).

According to this report, in 2024, Massachusetts was responsible for the intended deaths of 49,450 innocent human beings. That’s equivalent to the populations of Arlington, Barnstable, Pittsfield or Leominster; it accounts for 25,095 more abortions than the state reported in 2023. While the governor insists that abortion is not only health care but a human right as well, Massachusetts Citizens for Life maintains that life itself is the first and most important human right. And we have learned once again that our state consistently denies this basic human right to our most vulnerable.

Additionally, people must be aware that the Department of Public Health omits key information in its 2024 report that it previously included.

• Gestational age specifications – Unborn children are now grouped in broad categories, making it impossible to determine how far into a pregnancy women are consuming abortion pills, which are designed for use only up to 10 weeks gestation.
• Facility types – The state no longer specifies where abortions originate, i.e., hospital inpatient/outpatient, physicians, clinics, university clinics, telehealth.
• Previous abortions – We do not know how many abortions women have previously had.
• Previous live births – We do not know how many children women already have when they have an abortion.
• Marital status – No longer included.
• No regional data – The state does not report where out-of-state abortion recipients reside; abortion pills are more than likely being mailed from Massachusetts into states where pro-life protections prohibit them, and Massachusetts prescribers cannot be held accountable due to shield laws Governor Healey enacted.

These omissions reflect the sharp increase in chemical abortion, via the largely unregulated mifepristone, which the FDA has made available online without a physical examination or pregnancy confirmation.

It’s critical to note, however, that the state isn’t “hiding” information. The truth is far worse than that: the state can’t report on which women are having abortions because it does not know anything about these women, and neither do the abortionists who prescribe mifepristone. They don’t even know whether women ordered and consumed the drugs, or if a partner did so with an intent to trick or coerce.

We have arrived at a point where the abortion industry and the women’s rights movement – which both claim to champion women’s health and safety, their freedom and empowerment – can no longer assert that they provide any of those things. Instead, a woman, or teen (of whom a staggering 4,327 underwent abortions), bleeding alone in her bathroom after ingesting abortion pills, having never had her pregnancy confirmed or her condition responsibly assessed, is powerless. She is left alone while she waits for her body to expel that of her deceased unborn child. There is no “between a woman and her doctor” opportunity. Abortion rights supporters, who might have mailed her mifepristone in a Boston “pill packing party,” are intentionally anonymous and absent.

The 2024 data shows that Massachusetts helps to sell abortion to women across the United States without safeguards in place and little, if any, regard for these women’s medical needs or well being.

Massachusetts and the abortion industry continue to abandon women at an unprecedented and historic rate.

Myrna Maloney Flynn
President
Massachusetts Citizens for Life