AUGUSTA — The passage of Gov. Janet Mills’ bill to expand access to post-viability abortions is virtually assured after key votes in the Maine Senate and House of Representatives Tuesday, making it likely that Maine will adopt one of the least restrictive reproductive health laws in the nation.

The Senate voted 21-13 in favor of the bill at 12:30 p.m. after almost two hours of compelling and deeply personal debate. About nine hours later, after a contentious 90-minute debate, the House voted 73-69 to enact the bill. Last week, the House cast an initial 74-72 vote in support of the bill.

The bill will return to the Senate next week for a final vote before it heads to Mills’ desk for her signature.

Unlike last week, when House Democrats ardently defended the bill, Democrats seemed content to allow Republican opponents to rail against the bill on Tuesday without much response. Reasons for opposition ranged from religious aversion to concerns the bill was too vague to the lack of compromise options.

Rep. Tracy Quint, R-Hodgdon, told her colleagues the thought of such an extreme bill crushes her soul.

“How many of us know people who’ve given birth to premature infants or who’ve had them ourselves?” Quint asked. “Each new milestone reached a victory. Many of us have celebrated their miraculous lives. This bill allows babies at this age group of viability to be killed.”

Rep. David Boyer, R-Poland, said he felt bad for families who had suffered devastating diagnoses of fatal fetal abnormalities. The freshman lawmaker who ran on a pro-access platform said moderate Democrats and Republicans had hoped for an amendment to allow for post-viability abortions only in such cases.

“It’s really frustrating for these folks in the middle that every effort at compromise had been rejected,” he said. “This is a last-minute plea toward the middle, toward compromise, to have a bill that can address the heartbreak that these families have dealt with while still recognizing the sanctity of life.”

The proposal was expected to have an easier time passing in the Senate than in the House, where the bill was adopted last week on a 74-72 vote that followed a heated debate. Democrats have a stronger majority in the Senate and, unlike the House, those Democrats all campaigned as abortion access defenders.

If the bill secures a second approval vote from the Senate next week and is signed by Mills, Maine would have one of the least restrictive abortion laws in the nation. It would allow licensed doctors to approve abortions after a fetus becomes viable outside the womb, or at about 24 weeks.

Supporters have argued such rare medical decisions are best left to a woman and her doctor. Opponents said it would allow third-trimester abortions of healthy fetuses. Maine’s existing abortion law allows for post-viability abortions only if the mother’s life or health is at risk.

Tuesday’s House vote was a major defeat for the Maine GOP and bill opponents. They had identified the House as their best shot at preventing the expansion of Maine’s 30-year abortion law. They only needed one pro-access representative to switch sides to reverse the outcome, but it didn’t happen.

Only one House lawmaker, Rep. James Dill, D-Old Town, changed their vote over the last week. Dill had voted in favor of the bill last week, but this week he voted against it. Bill supporters grew their overall margin of victory because of an increase in Republican absences.

Six lawmakers who voted last week were absent Tuesday, four of whom were Republicans and one of whom was an independent who had opposed the bill. Two House members who missed last week’s vote showed up this week but canceled each other out; the Republican voted no and the Democrat voted yes.

SUPPORTERS CITE PERSONAL DECISIONS

Supporters focused on the tragic cases of Maine women who have received a medical diagnosis of a fatal fetal abnormality late in their pregnancies and had to spend tens of thousands of dollars to travel out of state, away from their family and friends, for the abortions they could not legally get under current Maine law.

“These are deeply personal health care decisions taking place in the most heartbreaking circumstances,” said Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, a co-chair of the legislative committee that oversaw a 19-hour public hearing on the bill. “We should trust patients and doctors to make these decisions.”

Carney referenced the case of Dana Peirce, a Falmouth woman forced to travel to Colorado to terminate her eight-month pregnancy due to a fatal fetal anomaly. Peirce’s story inspired Mills to write the bill despite having pledged to leave the state’s abortion law intact during her reelection campaign.

“We should respect the decisions made in these heartbreaking situations and we should ensure that our laws do not make a traumatic situation even worse,” Carney said on the floor. “Current laws have failed Maine patients and this bill is needed to address the rare and unimaginable situations that women face.”

But opponents claim that Mills’ bill would allow for later-in-pregnancy abortions in other situations, too.

OPPONENTS SEE FUNDAMENTAL DEPARTURE

Sen. Rick Bennett, R-Oxford, said the bill represents a fundamental departure from an uneasy consensus around Maine’s existing abortion law, which he co-sponsored 30 years ago. Maine’s existing abortion law protects both women’s rights and the preciousness of life after viability, he said.

“Proponents say it is needed to ensure that in rare cases involving fatal fetal conditions abortions may be performed in Maine,” Bennett said. “These circumstances are so rare, however, that it’s unlikely that such procedures may actually be available here in Maine when this bill passes.”

The amended bill language engrossed by both the House and Senate says post-viability abortions can be performed only “when it is necessary in the professional judgment of a physician,” and that such doctors “shall apply the applicable standard of care in making a professional judgment.”

“Nothing in this bill specifies a definition of abnormalities,” testified Sen. Stacey Guerin, R-Glenburn. “Do not rely on … talking points. Read the bill. Open your computers right now and read the bill before you vote.”

But supporters say the bill includes legislative guardrails to prevent the highly unlikely possibility that someone might seek a later-in-pregnancy abortion on a whim. Doctors must apply the standard of care when determining if one is necessary or face the loss of their license or civil and criminal penalties.

“It seems like a very, very unlikely ‘I-don’t-believe-it-would-happen’ situation that somebody is going to abort a viable, healthy baby for no reason,” said Sen. Cameron Reny, D-Lincoln. “That circumstance is a bogeyman to me, it’s not something that’s realistic or that would happen.”

Reny said her yes vote was a result of weighing that unlikely scenario against the chance of putting more hurt and suffering on the dozen or so Maine women a year that, like Peirce, must leave the state to get a later-in-pregnancy abortion due to a heartbreaking diagnosis.

The vote was divided along party lines, with just a single Democrat – Sen. Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop – voting against the bill. During an emotional speech that brought some colleagues to tears, Hickman told a story about how his birth mother had put him up for adoption at a time when abortion was still illegal.

Although adopted by a loving family, Hickman said he had been haunted by a recurring nightmare. The monster in his dream told Hickman that “you are nothing but a living abortion and nobody wants you.” He said it was a fear that stayed with him for years.

“As I continue to ponder this question of life or death, I want to say I trust women,” Hickman said. “As my mother said, it is about a woman, her doctor, and her god, and still I’m not sure what to do. I will end with this poem I wrote to get myself through what it meant to be a living abortion.”

The poem was about a young student who was raped by a relative and put the baby up for adoption.

Planned Parenthood said this law would make Maine a leader in the fight to protect access to abortion.

“Today’s majority vote is aligned with the will of Maine voters and Maine values,” said Nicole Clegg, the interim CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. “It is informed by medical science and evidence-based best practices for patient care. And it is an act of compassion for pregnant people.”

House and Senate Republicans bemoaned Maine’s likely adoption of what they deemed an extreme law.

“Over the last few weeks, the Maine State House has been the backdrop for the latest iteration of the classic battle of good versus evil,” Senate Republicans said in a written statement issued late Tuesday. “At this hour, evil has prevailed. Maine Democrats have paid up on their debt to Planned Parenthood.”

DEBATE PUSHED BACK

The Senate almost took up the bill Friday, but the leadership of both parties agreed to push debate until this week so the vote would take place in public during business hours, with advance notice to lawmakers and the public, including special interest groups that have been following the issue closely.

Senate Republicans and bill opponents knew before the 90-minute Senate debate even started Tuesday that their best shot at defeating Mills’ bill was in the House.

The bill entered the Senate with 20 of its 35 members already signed on as bill co-sponsors.  That did not mean they all would vote for the bill, however. In the House, several original co-sponsors were absent or voted no in that chamber’s contentious, late-night 74-72 vote Thursday.

Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, filed two amendments to the bill.

One would have limited the bill’s scope by adding two extra exemptions to the state’s current ban on post-viability abortions. Brakey wanted to add a fatal fetal anomaly likely to lead to death within 30 days after birth to the list. He did not raise the amendment on the floor on Tuesday, however.

The change that Brakey did propose – to ban the sale or transfer of aborted fetal tissue – failed 23-11.

If Mills’ bill is enacted, Maine would join states with similar abortion laws such as Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Eight other states allow post-viability abortions if conducted for lethal fetal anomalies.

The bill is one of the highest-profile measures heard by lawmakers this year. Last week, the Legislature sent other bills to Mills to waive abortion insurance co-payments, ban local preemption of state abortion laws and protect providers treating patients from states with abortion bans.

FEW SEEK LATE-TERM ABORTIONS

The number of people seeking abortions in Maine after the first trimester is small. In 2021, the most recent year data is available, 94% of the 1,905 abortions conducted in Maine were done within the first trimester of pregnancy, or up to 14 weeks. The remaining 107 occurred before 20 weeks.

Abortion-rights advocates note the chilling effect of Maine’s existing viability restrictions. The state law allows abortions for any reason through about 24 weeks, but doctors won’t do them after 20 weeks out of fear that imprecise gestational dating could lead to prosecution.

The number of women seeking post-viability abortions is very small – roughly 12 a year in Maine, according to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England – but research out of the University of California San Francisco shows that fetal anomaly is not the only reason women seek them.

According to a 2019 study out of the University of California San Francisco, the small group of abortions that take place after the first trimester happen because people get new information they didn’t have before or because of social, economic and logistical barriers to abortion care.

The research shows women seek later-in-pregnancy abortions when they learn of a fetal or maternal health issue, the loss of a job or spouse, and when they live in a state where abortion is illegal and must come up with the money and time off to travel to a state where abortion is legal.

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