A Catholic advocacy group is calling on Massachusetts bishops to excommunicate Governor Maura Healey, a Catholic Democrat, following her signing of legislation that removes restrictions on late-term abortions. CatholicVote argues that Healey committed a grave sin by enacting the "Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act," which allows abortions up until birth and permits physicians to perform procedures without legal repercussions.
Healey signed the bill on August 10. The new law, effective November 8, removes previous statutory restrictions that permitted abortions after 24 weeks only if a physician determined it necessary to preserve the mother’s physical or mental health, save her life, or in cases of fatal fetal diagnoses. This aligns Massachusetts with states like Colorado, Maryland, and Oregon, which have no gestational limits.
CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt stated in an open letter to the Catholic Bishops of Massachusetts that Healey's actions may have incurred automatic excommunication under church law. Reinhardt cited canon law, which states that individuals who procure an abortion or assist in procuring one incur automatic excommunication. "By the very fact of doing this — no one has to proclaim you excommunicated — you've done something so contrary to the faith that you've actually excommunicated yourself," Reinhardt told Fox News Digital. She questioned whether Healey's signing of the law makes her an accomplice in the public expansion of abortion.
Reinhardt, whose child was born at 35 weeks gestation, noted that the new law would permit the abortion of a child at the same gestational age. "There's absolutely no reason ever to kill a child that has absolute viability in life and no reason to kill an innocent child in the womb. That's considered a grave sin by the Catholic Church and by natural reason as well," she said.
CatholicVote also highlighted Healey's public bill-signing ceremony, where abortion advocates were present, as particularly scandalous for a Catholic politician. "She didn't have to sign this law, and she didn't have to sign it in the way she signed it, which was gravely scandalous as a Catholic, with people applauding around her the death of a baby, as I mentioned, that could be born today, tomorrow, yesterday with no difficulties," Reinhardt added.
In July, the Catholic Bishops of Massachusetts released a joint statement calling the proposed legislation "a radical measure which is gravely immoral." The statement was signed by the four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts. However, Reinhardt argued that a condemnation is insufficient and that excommunication serves as a "medicinal remedy for sin" and a call to repentance and reconciliation, rather than a punishment.
Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar, an Anglican missionary bishop, also publicly stated, "There is absolutely no way to justify administering the sacrament to Governor Healey now. She must be excommunicated immediately by the Holy Father!"
The Governor's Office, the Archdiocese of Boston, and the Massachusetts Catholic Conference had not immediately responded to requests for comment. Healey has defended the legislation as a necessary protection for women's healthcare and a "shield" against national efforts to roll back abortion protections. Massachusetts now joins several other states and the District of Columbia in removing gestational age limits on abortion.