Some Massachusetts Republicans To The Unborn: Drop Dead

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2022/06/30/some-massachusetts-republicans-to-the-unborn-drop-dead/

What a great day to be an unenrolled voter in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

More than half Republican members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives went along with the Planned Parenthood agenda in passing a horrible bill (H.4930) on Wednesday, just one day after it was introduced.

That’s right. The legislature that can’t even do its job and get a budget done for fiscal year 2023 has time to think up new ways to kill unborn children.

And 16 of the 27 House Republicans went along with it.

This awful bill called “An Act Expanding Protections For Reproductive Rights” (H.4930) did a lot of things that no pro-life person should support.

If you have health insurance in Massachusetts — and you probably do because the state charges a penalty for the pleasure of not having health insurance — then these people want to force you to pay for other people’s abortions. It’s not bad enough that we have to pay for the mass killing of developing human beings with our tax dollars (Medicaid funds abortions in Massachusetts). This bill requires insurance coverage for abortion without deductibles, copayments, or any other cost-sharing measures. It acts as an unfunded mandate to the benefit of private, for-profit abortion providers.

Another big pro-abortion provision in the bill:  it would allow for abortion after 24 weeks in the case of “severe” fetal anomalies, not just the “fatal” ones currently prescribed by Massachusetts public law.

And the law would give jurisdiction to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to determine what “severe” means. In other words, state legislators are handing over the power to determine who can be killed in third-trimester abortions to unelected bureaucrats. 

From what I’ve seen, I have little doubt that they’ll include babies with Down Syndrome on that list. The World Health Organization considers Down Syndrome a “severe” birth defect, and a late-term abortionist in Kanssas used this type of exemption to perform third-trimester abortions on babies with Down Syndrome.

If state representative Geoff Diehl (R-Whitman) or Wrentham businessman Chris Doughty gets elected governor, at least that administration could limit the scope on what the Department of Public Health considers to be a “severe” fetal anomaly. But if Maura Healey becomes governor? She could broaden those exemptions; we have to assume they’ll be bad under Charlie Baker, but she could take things further.

Plus, the law says that Massachusetts won’t cooperate with the enforcement of pro-life laws from other states — which effectively makes us an abortion sanctuary state. It also makes Massachusetts a sanctuary state for minors undergoing so-called gender-reassignment surgery. That’s bad, too, but the abortion stuff is worse.

If you’re not happy with this bill, you can let the following Republican members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives know you’re not happy with them for voting for it:

Jay Barrows (R-Mansfield)

Angelo D’Emilia (R-Bridgewater)

Shawn Dooley (R-Norfolk)

Kimberly Ferguson (R-Holden)

Paul Frost (R-Auburn)

Susan Gifford (R-Wareham)

Steven Howitt (R-Seekonk)

Bradley Jones (R-North Reading)

Hannah Kane (R-Shrewsbury)

Lenny Mirra (R-Georgetown)

David Muradian (R-Grafton)

Mathew Muratore (R-Plymouth)

Todd Smola (R-Warren)

David Vieira (R-Falmouth)

Timothy Whelan (R-Brewster)

Donald Wong (R-Saugus)

 

Meanwhile, we should thank the 17 representatives who voted against it:  11 Republicans and six Democrats.

Of note, a couple of Democrats showed real courage standing up to their party on this one. Every single person who voted against this deserves praise, especially state representatives Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) and Jeff Turco (D-Winthrop). They were a part of several amendments that tried to water down this bill. Unfortunately, the amendments didn’t pass, but they deserve credit nonetheless.

Along with state representative Joseph McKenna (R-Webster), they either filed or cosponsored amendments that would have:  allowed taxpayers to opt out of funding abortion and instead fund the baby save haven program (Amendment 1); prevented Planned Parenthood from receiving state funding (Amendment 2); required schools to teach fetal development in either Grade 7, 8, or 9 (Amendment 3); eliminated the insurance coverage provision of the bill (Amendment 6); granted pharmacists a religious exemption against having to dispense emergency contraception (Plan B) (Amendment 7); and eliminated the “severe” fetal anomaly section abortion-expansion aspect of the bill (Amendment 8).

That’s what we should want from members of the legislature:  people who are going to stand up for their values on Beacon Hill. 

On Wednesday, these people were on the right side of the issue, voting against this awful bill:

 

Colleen Garry (D-Dracut)

Russell Holmes (D-Mattapan)

John Rogers (D-Norwood)

Alan Silvia (D-Fall River)

Jeff Turco (D-Winthrop)

Bud Williams (D-Springfield)

Donald Berthiaume (R-Spencer)

Nicholas Boldyga (R-Southwick)

David DeCoste (R-Norwell)

Peter Durant (R-Spencer)

Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica)

Joseph McKenna (R-Webster)

Norman Orrall (R-Lakeville)

Kelly Pease (R-Westfield)

Michael Soter (R-Bellingham)

Alyson Sullivan (R-Abington)

Steve Xiarhos (R-Yarmouth)

 

(The Bud Williams vote was unexpected given that he voted for the ROE Act in December 2020.)

If we had more state representatives like these people and fewer that sided with the Planned Parenthood agenda over unborn children, we’d have a much better state.

 

 

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