Around New England

Massachusetts GOP Chairman Jim Lyons Calls ROE Act Abortion Bill ‘Infanticide’

March 28, 2019

The chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party blasted the pro-abortion ROE Act bill as pro-infanticide.

“Under the radical infanticide bill, absolutely nothing would be done to protect or even comfort a baby who survives a late-term abortion,” party chairman Jim Lyons said in a written statement Wednesday, March 27. “In addition, the extreme infanticide bill removes all practical limitations on aborting unborn babies. … Let’s not go down this extreme and dangerous path. Let’s follow a higher road and join together to protect, rather than reject, the least of those among us.”

Lyons also criticized a provision in the bill that would eliminate the need for a minor to get consent from the minor’s parents or from a judge to have an abortion.

“Everything is done in secrecy. Even the payment to the abortionist would be made with taxpayer funds without parental consultation or consent,” Lyons said in the written statement. “Can it really be that a decision by someone under 18 to have an abortion is less significant or traumatizing than smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, or visiting a tanning salon?”

Supporters of the bill say the state’s remaining restrictions on abortion should be removed.

Massachusetts Senate Bill 1209 has 51 sponsors. It has been referred to the state Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health, but no hearing has been scheduled yet.