The abortion bill progressing through the state Legislature is both a needed, material change for Maine and, contrary to what the battle over it might suggest, will not lead to anything like the atmosphere of chaos and abandon so deeply feared by its opponents.
The reality of the limited application of L.D. 1619, should it become law, risks being lost entirely to the generalized outcry against it. The following bears repeating: About 12 people each year in Maine require an abortion after viability. This number represents just 0.5% of the abortions sought in our state annually. Andrew Harnik/Associated Press, File
“As strong as Maine’s abortion law is, it leaves people like me without options,” Yarmouth resident Dana Peirce wrote on this site last November. “We had to travel away from our home, our daughter and our support systems to end my pregnancy.”
Peirce, whose routine 32-week scan revealed that her second child had a rare and deadly form of skeletal dysplasia, was unable to access abortion here in Maine. Despite the life-altering grief of losing a child, the column in which Peirce described her experience at a Colorado abortion clinic – and her argument for the expansion of access to abortion in Maine – was delivered in an even and clear-headed way.
There were no rhetorical flourishes, no injection of drama – her story required neither to leap off the page. It was a calm and simple telling of a devastating and complex personal account.
It was that same story, we now know, that led Gov. Mills to introduce the Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws, which, if made law, will allow abortion after the point of viability with approval from a qualified medical professional.
In the weeks and months since the proposal was first unveiled, a large and vocal contingent of Mainers have made their strident opposition to it known. In a striking, marathon display May 1, hundreds upon hundreds of members of the public testified against the bill, their testimony lasting through the night and into the following morning.
Late Thursday, the Maine House of Representatives voted 74-72 in favor of the bill’s passage. The language flying between lawmakers was charged, at times verging on Shakespearean. House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, responding to the outcome of the vote, declared: “The stench in this building is overwhelming.”
Faulkingham earlier in the evening referred to the Legislature’s being “torn apart,” and the advancement of the bill as having the potential to “ruin” other work between the parties. “I just don’t understand how a heart can grow so cold,” Assistant House Minority Leader Amy Arata said of the bill’s supporters.
This editorial board articulated its preliminary support for Gov. Mills’ proposal at the end of January, finding it to be a humane, compassionate intervention and pushing back on the suggestion that it was “extreme.”
Even by that time, the question of scale and degree had been muddied. Today, the reality of the limited application of L.D. 1619, should it become law, risks being lost entirely to the generalized outcry against it. The following bears repeating: About 12 people each year in Maine require an abortion after viability. This number represents just 0.5% of the abortions sought in our state annually.
Rather than daring to acknowledge on the modest upshot of the legal change being pursued, the most vocal opponents have been fixated on the possibility of its sparking a new trend of abortion through the third trimester, although both prevailing wisdom and available statistics clearly show how scarcely and in what limited and generally very painful and challenging circumstances these abortions are sought.
This weekend marks one year since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade upended a level of protection that had been relied on by Americans for 50 years. Across the country, states have since been gripped in fresh, opportunistic fighting over the terms and conditions of abortion access.
We believe that these battles’ best-case outcomes take into account a very limited slice of personal experience, a subset of subsets, an example of which Dana Peirce wished and was selfless enough to bring to the public’s attention. It is right to permit families, with the help of a doctor, to form their own response to unique and intensely personal circumstances and predicaments.
For those incensed by the prospect of some kind of abortion free-for-all, there are myriad other outlets for the expression of concern about life and livelihoods. Indeed, there are scores of other legislative efforts underway that stand to improve living conditions for Mainers of all ages. It occurs to us that if we could have hundreds of people lined up at the lectern in passionate support of better child care, health care, labor standards or education, we’d be doing well.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
