Maine Democrat leaders appear poised to pass a radical pro-abortion bill to legalize abortions up to birth this month, despite massive public opposition.
The Bangor Daily News reports the state Judiciary Committee tabled the pro-abortion bill Thursday due to lawmakers’ scheduling conflicts, but Democrats likely will advance it next week.
A large crowd of pro-life advocates attended, filling the committee room and an overflow room to speak up for unborn babies, even though the committee meeting was announced at the last minute, according to the local news.
State Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, praised the pro-lifers for showing up, saying: “You are impacting this process in huge, significant ways. You should be very proud of yourselves.”
However, there still is a big risk of the bill passing the Democrat-controlled state legislature.
Gov. Janet Mills, a pro-abortion Democrat, introduced LD 1619 earlier this year to legalize killing unborn babies up to birth for any reason an abortionist deems “necessary.” Currently, abortions are legal up to 24 weeks.
The bill is especially dangerous and discriminatory toward children with disabilities. As an example of the supposed need for late-term abortions, Mills shared the story of a baby boy in Maine who was diagnosed with a potentially fatal disorder before birth, according to the AP. The governor asserted the mother should have been allowed to abort her late-term, fully-formed son in Maine – simply because he had a disability.
ACTION ALERT: To oppose this radical pro-abortion bill, please Contact Maine state lawmakers.
Karen Vachon, executive director of Maine Right to Life, said Mills is returning a favor to the Planned Parenthood abortion chain, which “spent millions buying elections in Maine and around the country.”
“Pro-abortion leaders have lied repeatedly about their true intention,” Vachon said. “During the campaign in 2022, they were content with the law the way it was. In January, they announced they would propose a narrow expansion to address specific instances of tragic fetal disease and debilitation. Now they’ve moved the goal post once again, proposing abortion on demand, with no limitations to the point of birth.”
Here’s more from the report:
Democrats made only slight tweaks to the bill on Thursday that looked to be aimed at rhetorically answering some Republican criticism on the bill. Opponents have hit it in part for repealing a specific law barring those without medical licenses from performing abortions, although there are general laws against unlicensed practice that still would apply to abortion.
The changes reference those laws and clarify that doctors performing abortions must operate under current standards of care, but Republicans said during debate that the changes did not assuage their concerns and complained that they were not given more time to ask questions.
Earlier this year, Catholic Bishop Robert Deeley of the Diocese of Portland slammed abortions as “heartless” and “immoral” while mourning how casually some lawmakers promote it, Spectrum News reports.
“This is no longer a discussion of heartlessly destroying a fetus, which is immoral on its own,” Deeley said. “This is an unborn child. Everything is ready for birth. It is beyond troubling to see how denying the existence of a human life has become so casual for this governor and members of the Legislature.”
The bishop encouraged all “people of good will” to oppose abortion and to let their lawmakers know.
“Governor Mills has said that the rights of women are not dispensable,” Deeley said. “If only she had the same compassion for children.”
Voters have been voicing strong opposition to the pro-abortion legislation. In May, more than 2,200 showed up at the Statehouse to protest the bill. Nearly 700 testified against it while only 65 testified in favor.
“If a baby can survive outside its mother, that means that it is alive. It has a life,” one woman, Audrey Wimmer, told lawmakers. “By terminating viable pregnancies, we are being shown that lives don’t matter, and that isn’t important.”
Numerous polls in recent years have found that most Americans oppose late-term abortions. They recognize that babies in the womb should be protected, at the very least, once they are viable.
Abortion activists know this. So when they push legislation to allow late-term abortions, they typically do so with stories about tragic circumstances and claims that viable, fully-formed babies will not be killed for elective reasons.
But the evidence shows otherwise. Research about late-term abortions indicates that viable unborn babies are aborted for elective reasons in states where it’s legal.
A recent study from ANSIRH, a pro-abortion research group at the University of California, found women have third-trimester abortions for a number of reasons, including difficulty obtaining an abortion, the inability to afford an abortion earlier, failure to realize she was pregnant earlier, and medical problems with the unborn baby. None of the abortions in the study were because of medical problems with the mother, according to the report.
“The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester…” the researchers wrote. “[T]he circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”
In Maine, the state health department reported 1,931 abortions in 2018.
ACTION ALERT: To oppose this radical pro-abortion bill, please Contact Maine state lawmakers.
