An overflow crowd on the fourth floor of the Massachusetts State House watches two doctors in favor of the proposed ROE Act abortion expansion bill testify during a marathon hearing Monday, June 17, 2019. Photo by M.J. McDonald.
Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of an exchange about whether the proposed ROE Act abortion expansion bill in the Massachusetts Legislature would legalize infanticide. The discussion took place Monday, June 17 during a hearing before the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
The speakers are state Representative Sheila Harrington (R-Groton), a practicing lawyer, and two supporters of the ROE Act bill, Dr. Carole Allen, a retired pediatrician who is vice president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and Dr. Luu Ireland, an obstetrician-gynecologist at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester and a board member of the Massachusetts section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The ROE Act bill would, among other things, eliminate a current requirement in state law that girls 17 and younger get permission from a parent or from a superior court judge in order to get an abortion. It would also eliminate a requirement that a doctor try to save the life of a baby born alive after an attempted abortion.
Harrington had just asked the doctors about the parental consent requirement before moving to a different topic. Here below is what all three speakers said from that point on, in full:
Sheila Harrington: I’m curious, too, with regard to your positioning. You’re representing the Massachusetts Medical Society here?
Dr. Carole Allen: I am.
Sheila Harrington: You are. O.K.. I’m curious as to the reasoning why Massachusetts Medical Society is supporting the removal of Section 12P, with regard to the fact that if a baby, despite the abortion, is born alive, you presently give medical treatment to that baby – all resources available. And that is being taken out in the ROE Act. And that is something the Mass. Medical is very comfortable with?
Dr. Carole Allen: I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with that particular section that you’re reading into.
[audible groans from the audience]
Sheila Harrington: O.K., so Section 12P is the section in our existing law –
Dr. Carole Allen: Yes
Sheila Harrington: And under that existing law, it says that they are to: “in keeping with good medical practice, consistent with the procedure being used, to preserve the life and health of the aborted child. Such steps shall include the presence of life-supporting equipment, as defined by the department of public health, in the room where the abortion is … performed.” You don’t agree with that?
Dr. Carole Allen: We agree – we would like to see the terminology brought into modern lexicon. And, ah, I don’t believe modern terminology would talk about an aborted child – it’s a fetus.
Sheila Harrington: Well, no, ah, ah, ma’am. It’s actually being taken out of our existing law.
Dr. Carole Allen: Correct.
Sheila Harrington: That is our existing law. And I’m just asking you if Mass. Medical Society believes that’s a good idea.
Dr. Luu Ireland: So this is, this part that is taken out is not preventing life-saving treatment from being done to a newborn. What this does is it allows the, the next steps in medical care to be made between a physician and the patient that they’re taking care of.
Sheila Harrington: Where does it say that?
Dr. Luu Ireland: So if they determine that life-saving medical treatment is needed, they have full capacity to do that. But if it is a, a-a-a, a newborn that has a lethal fetal anomaly, they also have the option of providing comfort care, or palliative care.
Sheila Harrington: Where does it say that?
Dr. Luu Ireland: It doesn’t say –
Sheila Harrington: It doesn’t.
Dr. Luu Ireland: It’s taking out the section so that physicians have the ability to use their medical expertise and ethical obligations to provide the appropriate treatment.
Sheila Harrington: But it doesn’t say that in the ROE Act. No.
Dr. Luu Ireland: The goal is to take out language that ties the hands of physicians and makes medical decisions for the physician.
Sheila Harrington: So you’re saying that you don’t want to — if the baby is born alive, you don’t want to be forced into doing what you have, what you could to keep it alive.
Dr. Luu Ireland: So first of all I’ve never been in that situation. I don’t think that that actually happens in medical care.
Sheila Harrington: Oh, I think it happens. I think it happens.
An overflow crowd on the fourth floor of the Massachusetts State House watches two doctors in favor of the proposed ROE Act abortion expansion bill testify during a marathon hearing Monday, June 17, 2019. Photo by M.J. McDonald. 
