Massachusetts Senate Bill 1209 – An Attack on Women and Life

By Sr. Natalie Sayde Salameh, MSCL

On Wednesday evening, May 15, I attended a meeting in Fall River on Massachusetts Senate Bill 1209 facilitated by the Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL) where a  number of representatives from several Christian denominations were present.

This bill #1209 is currently being proposed in the Massachusetts State Legislature and it has serious, dangerous consequences for the protection of women and the protection of life. This Bill is similar to its New York counterpart that was approved by Gov. Cuomo earlier this year.

The proposed legislation in Massachusetts would produce the following perilous consequences:

• Allow abortion in Massachusetts during all nine months of pregnancy.
• Eliminate any requirement that even late-term abortions be performed in hospitals. As a result, a woman’s health would be less protected than the law’s commitment to promoting abortion at any time, for any reason.
• Eliminate the requirement to make efforts to care for a child who survives an attempted abortion. Senate Bill 1209 strikes out all requirements that doctors provide life-saving treatment to born infants resulting from an attempted abortion. 
• Eliminate any requirement that a pregnant minor (under 18) have any adult consent before undergoing an abortion. This leaves our children, maybe some as young as 12 or 13 years old, prey to sexual predators and sex trafficking.

The proposed provisions of this Bill are extreme and a violent attack on women and the right to life of all unborn (and born) babies in Massachusetts. This Bill is promoting nothing short of infanticide.

Please join the Sisters in signing a petition against this Bill: 
https://www.masscitizensforlife.org/petition-against-extreme-roe-abortion-act

Also, please call or visit your local representative in Massachusetts to voice your concern about Senate Bill 1209. 

The proposed Bill will be formally heard by the Senate Committee on Public Health sometime in June. If you wish to publicly testify against this Bill at the Senate Committee hearing in June, the MCFL welcome you to join them in this effort. 

Let us unite in prayer for unborn children, all women and families faced with excruciatingly difficult pregnancies, and let us pray for our legislators and elected officials that they may see the dangerous consequences of this proposed Bill.