Pro-life advocates seek thousands of signatures to halt Massachusetts abortion law

Pro-life advocates in Massachusetts are moving to halt the implementation of a recently passed law that effectively removed all limits on abortion in the state, aiming to both put the issue on the ballot before voters and potentially suspend the law as well.

Massachusetts became the latest state in the U.S. to remove all restrictions on abortion when Democratic Gov. Maura Healey signed the law on Aug. 10. It allows women to obtain abortions at any point in pregnancy for any reason.

Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), called the policy “shocking” and “horrendous” shortly after the law was signed. He described the measure as “an affront against the dignity of life.”

A pro-life coalition, meanwhile, is leading an effort to roll back the law, aiming to place the policy before voters on a statewide ballot and potentially suspend the law prior to that vote.

The Repeal 188 initiative is seeking up to 50,000 signatures to potentially roll back the law. The process — known as a “veto referendum” — requires advocates to collect signatures equal to at least 1.5% of votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election in order to put the repeal question on the 2028 statewide ballot.

If petitioners are able to collect signatures equal to 2% of the total number of those votes, meanwhile, they can suspend the law prior to the election. The effort says it needs 37,289 signatures to qualify for the ballot and 49,716 to suspend the law.

Steve Petrarca, a Massachusetts resident and a member of his parish’s pro-life committee, told EWTN News that “many” parishioners at his church were unaware of the effort. Petrarca himself is helping to gather signatures. 

He said advocates may aim to collect closer to 100,000 signatures in order to ensure they meet the threshold to suspend the law. A distribution requirement in Massachusetts means no more than 25% of signatures on a petition can come from any one single county in the state.

The abortion measure drew rebuke from the state’s Catholic bishops, who described it as “a radical measure which is gravely immoral.” The advocacy group CatholicVote, meanwhile, called for Healey — who identifies as Catholic — to be excommunicated.

“Healey is a Catholic in a state of grave sin. She has publicly and now legislatively cooperated in the destruction of innocent human life,” CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt said.

In a video released amid the campaign, Massachusetts Citizens for Life President Myrna Flynn said signatories must be registered voters in the state and under state law can only sign petitions that are local to them.

“If we receive 50,000 signatures by October 23, Massachusetts voters — not activist politicians — will get to decide this very important issue in 2028,” she said.