Abortion care is an essential part of reproductive healthcare throughout a pregnancy, and the state should never have the authority to force a person to remain pregnant against their will.
LD 16919 would amend the Reproductive Privacy Act in three ways:
- Remove ban on abortions later in pregnancy
- Remove criminal penalties for medical providers who offer abortion care later in pregnancy and support people who help someone self-manage abortion in Maine
- Remove antiquated and invasive data collection requirements for abortion patients and providers
This bill will help ensure medical providers can offer the care their patients need, when they need it, throughout a pregnancy. Even before the Dobbs ruling, Maine families have been forced to travel out of state for abortion care because of medically unnecessary restrictions in our current law.
This bill will help people like Dana, from Yarmouth, who learned later in her pregnancy the child she was expecting had a rare form of spinal dysplasia. This condition resulted in him suffering broken bones inside her womb and would make it difficult for him to breathe on his own if he survived delivery. Because Maine’s current law bans abortion later in pregnancy, Dana and her husband had to spend tens of thousands of dollars and travel to Colorado to get the care their family needed.
We can do better in Maine, and this bill is a step toward ensuring more Mainers are not forced to bear physical, emotional, psychological and financial burdens simply to access medical care they need.
LD 1619, An Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws, establishes trust in medical providers and their patients, decriminalizes the medical procedure of abortion later in pregnancy, and regulates abortion like any other safe, legal medical procedure. It also addresses antiquated data collection policies related to abortion care in Maine, protecting patient privacy and healthcare providers who perform abortion care.
BILL MOVEMENT:
- Bill introduced: 4/12/23
- Referred to Judiciary Committee: 4/13/23
- Public Hearing in Judiciary Committee: 5/1/23
- Work Session and Vote in Judiciary Committee: N/A
- Passed House of Representatives: N/A
- Passed Senate: N/A
- Action by Governor: N/A
