MOST CURRENT UPDATE on the "R.O.E." Act -- refiled as H.5179  (12/17/2020)

"R.O.E." failed to pass committee review after thousands of citizens gathered to oppose it in 2019 and 2020. Pro-abortion lobbyists then inserted the provisions found in "R.O.E" into the annual state budget, where house and senate versions were reconciled as "section 40" and sent to Governor Baker for approval or veto. Governor Baker had previously stated that he would veto "R.O.E" and reject any legislation including its provisions that legalize passive infanticide and remove parental consent. Baker rejected the removal of parental consent and returned the bill to the legislature. He left in provisions that would permit passive infanticide. 

Representatives Marc Lombardo and Allyson Sullivan have introduced an amendment to the state budget to protect our infants born alive during an abortion,  “Guaranteeing Medical Care to Babies Born Alive,” which reads as follows:

If an abortion is performed pursuant to section 12-N, the facility where the abortion is performed shall maintain life-supporting equipment, as defined by the department of public health, the physician performing the abortion must use life saving measures to preserve the life and health of a live birth and the patient.

Contact your state representative to ask him or to support the amendment, "Guaranteeing Medical Care to Babies Born Alive," and tell them you expect them to support a veto of the budget if it includes the "R.O.E" Act's

abortion expansion.

 You can look up your senator at MALEGISLATURE.GOV/findmylegislator

For the history of "An Act Removing Obstacles and Expanding Access to Abortion" (R.O.E.), you may read through the following.

The "R.O.E." Act, or S.1209/H.3320, having stalled in the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, was re-packaged by Representative Claire Cronin as Amendment 759 to the Annual Massachusetts State Budget in the House and as Amendment 180 in the Senate.. 

The R.O.E. Act's provisions as included Amendment 759/Amendment 180: Just the facts

compiled by a legal team of pro-life attorneys and lobbyists

• Amendment #789/180 would eliminate current laws requiring that physicians “take all reasonable steps to preserve the life and health of the aborted child” — The following language in the current law is clear in its requirement to preserve the life of the child:

Section 12P. If an abortion is performed pursuant to section twelve M, the physician performing the abortion shall take all reasonable steps, both during and subsequent to the abortion, in keeping with good medical practice, consistent with the procedure being used, to preserve the life and health of the aborted child.

The new language states only that there must be “life-supporting equipment” present, and eliminates the requirement for the abortionist to actually USE it.

• This amendment would allow for abortions after a 24-week period, citing that it only be deemed “necessary, in the best medical judgment of the physician, to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health”
• Children born after the 24-week mark, ​according to the New England Journal of Medicine,​ if provided with medical treatment, have a survival rate of more than 50 percent — a number that jumps up to 72 percent at 25 weeks.
• The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, named after former Planned Parenthood president and eugenics supporter Dr. Allan Frank Guttmacher, has acknowledged​ “that most women seeking later terminations are ​not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”
• This amendment repeals parental consent requirements for minors between the ages of 16 and 17, and allows doctors to waive the requirement for parental consent for girls of ANY age who believe they may be pregnant.
• This amendment expands who can perform an abortion to now include a physician assistant, nurse practitioner, or nurse midwife.