Groundbreaking Massachusetts Law Protects Telemedicine Abortion Providers Serving Patients Located i

[Novara]

Source: Ms. Magazine

Groundbreaking Massachusetts Law Protects Telemedicine Abortion Providers Serving Patients Located in States Banning Abortion

Massachusetts passed a sweeping new reproductive rights law on June 29 with robust protections for healthcare workers who provide abortion services to patients living outside the state—both those who travel to Massachusetts for care, and those who receive care in their home states from Massachusetts providers via telemedicine. The Massachusetts law means women, girls, trans men and nonbinary people living in states with abortion bans can receive telemedicine abortion care from U.S. providers and obtain abortion pills promptly by mail, rather than having to order pills from outside of the country, which can take weeks.

In addition to provider protections, the law removes cost barriers to abortion care, expands access to third-trimester abortions in cases of grave fetal diagnosis, increases access to emergency contraception and medication abortion, and guarantees the right to gender-affirming care.

“This is a huge victory for patients and providers, who deserve the ability to seek, access, or deliver reproductive healthcare without fear or shame,” said Dr. Jennifer Childs-Roshak, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. “With this law, Massachusetts unequivocally affirms that abortion is healthcare, and that zip code, income, or identity should not be a barrier to care.”

“Today Massachusetts has made it indisputably clear: Our commonwealth will stand up to hostile attacks on life-saving and life-affirming healthcare,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of Reproductive Equity Now.

Read more: https://msmagazine.com/2022/08/18/massachusetts-abortion-law/

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Oh yeah!

[Lonestarblue]

1. Here's hoping we elect more Senators and keep the House so Congress can do the same.

[LeftInTX]

2. Wow!

Great news.
Hope the law is iron-clad, not necessarily in the legal sense, but in the medical practice sense.
The doctor will not only legally be able to practice this, but hopefully feel comfortable practicing it and not worry about wrinkles.

[Novara]

3. These details should ease your worries:

To shield healthcare providers from unjust attacks by anti-abortion states and advocates, the new law:

prohibits the extradition of Massachusetts providers who lawfully provide abortion care in Massachusetts to a resident of a different state where the procedure is illegal;

prevents Massachusetts law enforcement officers or employees from providing information or assistance to any federal or state law enforcement agency or private citizen in relation to an investigation or inquiry into protected reproductive healthcare services;

creates a new civil remedy for providers in Massachusetts to countersue if they are the subject of criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits filed by someone outside of the state, enabling them to recover an amount equal to the damages assessed in these out-of-state lawsuits;

protects providers’ professional licenses from any negative impacts of being sued by a resident of a state where abortion is illegal for providing legal abortion care in the Massachusetts; and

keeps malpractice insurance within reach for providers when they face out-of-state civil lawsuits for providing lawful abortion care in Massachusetts.

[LeftInTX]

4. Excellent!

[calimary]

9. Wonder if Oregon's done that. Actually, there's good news!

On edit - think I’ll write one saying thank-you to our state legislators for doing so.

Oregon Democrats vow to protect abortion after Roe v. Wade overturned
Updated: Jun. 24, 2022, 7:42 p.m.|Published: Jun. 24, 2022, 7:26 a.m.

https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2022/06/in-oregon-stronghold-of-reproductive-rights-democrats-vow-to-protect-access-to-abortions.html?outputType=amp

———
Oregon’s hospital merger law may further protect abortion access in the state
By Nick Budnick (The Lund Report)
July 6, 2022 5 a.m.
Oregon’s strict law regulating health care mergers may keep religiously affiliated health systems that do not provide abortion care from expanding

https://www.opb.org/article/2022/07/06/oregon-hospital-merger-law-abortion-access-protections-us-supreme-court-roe-v-wade/?outputType=amp

————
PRO-CHOICE OREGON
Pro-Choice Oregon develops and sustains a constituency that uses the political process to guarantee every person who can become pregnant the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, raising healthy families, and choosing legal abortion.

https://www.prochoiceoregon.org/

———

[wryter2000]

5. Other states have passes laws to help as well.

Although I'm not aware of any others doing telemedicine. My sister helped write CT's law.

I guess there are already situations where abortion pills can be provided by telemedicine. This law would allow it to be done in MA for the whole country. Game changer.

In a just world, the anti-abortion types will have won the Congress for us this year AND find their anti-abortion laws don't work as well as they expected.

[Farmer-Rick]

19. Yup, as soon as the abortion pill came out

Forced birthers lost the issue. You can't keep pills out of people's hands if they want them.

Now States are implementing byzantine punishments for women and providers who dare use abortions. To be successful, forced birth states will have to be more intrusive in family life than to the Chinese government enforcing the one child policy.

Look how badly the US controls illegal drugs. If the US could stop pills from getting to people who want them, you wouldn't have had an opioid epidemic.

All this stupid forced birth stuff all because Christians think the know what their super sky daddy wants when they can't even agree on what version of Jesus is true.

[NNadir]

6. Shades of the Underground Railroad in the times of slavery.

Decent people aghast at human slavery, fought slavery in this way, despite the onerous Fugitive Slave Law.
It may be more problematic in the age of electronic monitoring however.

Abortion rights need to be guaranteed nationally.

[childfreebychoice]

7. My concern, what happens to women in these anti choice states, who take

The pills, then run into difficulty necessitating er/doc visit, will they be charged under their state's laws for illegally obtaining an abortion?

[lark]

11. Ding, ding. That's the plan.

They (R christofascists) hate us women.

[Farmer-Rick]

20. Yup, they go to jail

For murder.

They are severely punished for thinking they had bodily autonomy like men.

The more women they send to jail for having abortions, the more slaves they have to work for corporations.

[riversedge]

22. Life sucks for many at times.

[onetexan]

8. WHOOOPP!!! K&R!!!

[lark]

10. Great - until SCOTUS knocks it down - which they absolutely will.

The SCOTUS Christofascists will be incensed over this and will knock it down quickly because they are nothing but lying hypocrites who think it's fine to force their religious beliefs on the rest of America and just use states rights as a dodge to do that.

[Farmer-Rick]

21. Well.....

They used State's Rights as an excuse to take away bodily autonomy from women. They are going to have to twist themselves into pretzels to justify preventing a state from passing laws about abortions.

But yeah, the.Supreme Court's magical sky daddy won't like this turn of events.

[evolves]

12. Unfortunately, many states

Are criminalizing the use of medication abortion pills, so this really doesn’t help pregnant people in those states.

[paleotn]

13. We are rapidly becoming 2 separate countries.

[Novara]

14. Yes. One that respects women as humans and one that does not.

[Demovictory9]

15. K&R

[dalton99a]

16. Kick

[uppityperson]

17. K&R

[JudyM]

18. This is astonishing.

Way to go, MA legislature!!