Catholic leaders in Massachusetts on Saturday objected to an emergency measure by Governor Maura Healey to implement an abortion law, effectively blocking attempts by anti-abortion activists to suspend it.
In a letter issued Saturday evening, the clerics called on state legislators to “reconsider the troubling state of our culture.” The law, which Healey brought into force on Friday, makes it easier for women to receive later-term abortions by relaxing guidelines for pregnancies at 24 weeks’ gestation or later.
The letter was signed by Boston Archbishop Richard Henning, Bishop Robert Joseph McManus of Worcester, Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha of Fall River, and Bishop William Byrne of Springfield.
“We respectfully and passionately disagree that abortion, the taking of human life, may be considered health care,” read the letter. “We also disagree that there is an emergency requiring the further expansion of the existing and already radically permissive law.”
State law has allowed abortions after 24 weeks only under specific circumstances, including to preserve a patient’s life. But the new law leaves the decision to end a pregnancy entirely to “the professional judgment of a physician,” making Massachusetts’ laws among the country’s broadest.
The new law was passed by the legislature in July and signed by Healey in August. But on Friday, the governor used her executive authority to bring the law into effect immediately, blocking an attempt by anti-abortion activists to suspend the measure.
That action came days after Healey was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term, and about a week after activists said they had collected enough signatures to temporarily halt the law from going into effect and put a question on the 2028 ballot asking voters to repeal it.
In a letter Friday to Secretary of State William F. Galvin, Healey wrote that any delay in implementing the law “would prolong uncertainty for patients, families, physicians and health care institutions, and risk further harm to the health and safety of women in Massachusetts.”
She added that “dozens of patients facing devastating diagnoses or other complex circumstances” late in pregnancy are “forced” to decide whether to leave Massachusetts to receive care or forgo it altogether.
In Saturday’s letter, Catholic leaders said they were “grateful” to those activists “who worked against time and many other obstacles” in their campaign. They urged Catholics to continue to “promote life and to assist and accompany expectant mothers and fathers in distress or in crisis.”
“Our work continues as we heed the call of the Gospel to defend life at all stages,” read the letter. “We pray for our Governor and legislators that the Lord may inspire wise and compassionate leadership. We call upon all to support families, especially those in crisis, and to build a culture that supports and loves every member of the human family.”
The letter cited the words of Pope Leo XIV, who on Saturday expressed his opposition to abortion during a visit to Uruguay — one of the first Latin American countries to legalize abortion. Leo told the country’s president and other public officials that “the unborn already belong to the human family.”
The pontiff’s comments on Saturday reflected the church’s longtime stance on abortion, though Leo has also criticized the politicization of the issue in the United States. Last year, he seemed to push back on conservative bishops in the US by discussing the apparent contradictions of some “pro-life” supporters.
“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion but says I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” Leo said at the time. “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Material from previous Globe coverage was used in this report.
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.