SPONSORS: Governor Mills, House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, Senate President Troy Jackson
COMMITTEE: Judiciary
This bill updates Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Act to meet the changed and changing landscape of abortion care and access post-Dobbs decision. The three core changes include:
- Data Collection - Abortion care providers are required to collect and submit data to the Maine Center for Disease Control on each abortion patient. This bill proposes changes to data collection practices.
- Remove criminal code - The current RPA includes a criminal statute that could be used to prosecute someone who is not a medical provider and assists a pregnant person in terminating a pregnancy. This bill would remove the criminalization element from Maine’s RPA.
- Remove gestational ban - Currently, Maine’s RPA refers to “viability” as the cut off for legal abortion in Maine. This bill seeks to remove a gestational limit on abortion care and allow pregnant people to terminate pregnancies beyond 24 weeks when determined necessary in consultation with a medical provider.
Criminal Code:
- When Maine’s RPA was originally established, there were lingering concerns about bad actors exploiting vulnerable pregnant people who seek abortion care. This originated from the tragic experiences of many people pre-Roe who died of sepsis or experienced lifelong health impacts following illegal abortions.
- In our current moment, there is concern that this aspect of the law could be used to criminalize people assisting someone with self-managing their abortion using pills.
- Self-managed abortion is safe. Criminalizing outcomes and support lead to worse health outcomes for pregnant people.
Data Collection:
- Some of the data collection questions are antiquated and posed in ways that are value-laden (ex: Asking about marital status and educational attainment) and should be updated to reflect contemporary norms.
- Rising concerns about criminalization and targeted harassment towards abortion seekers provide good reason for Maine to update its data collection questions and practices to ensure patient privacy and safety.
Removing Gestational Ban:
- We trust that pregnant Mainers, in consultation with qualified healthcare providers, know what is best for their health, their families and their futures.
- Mainers who need to terminate pregnancies at or beyond 24 weeks of gestation should not be forced to travel out of state, at great financial and personal expense, to receive care.
- Pregnancy decisions should be made by pregnant individuals in consultation with their loved ones and providers, not decided by political actors with ideological agendas.
If you or someone you love has experienced an abortion further along in pregnancy and would like to share your personal testimony with the Judiciary Committee at a public hearing–or submit written testimony–GRR! and our partners are happy to support you in any way we can. Contact our organizer Cait if you would like support around testimony.
A majority of Maine legislators in both the House and Senate have signed on to co-sponsor this bill. Please take a moment to thank a co-sponsor who represents your district for advancing abortion access in Maine.
Join GRR! and our organizational partners in-person at the statehouse in Augusta on Monday, May 1st to show your support for abortion access. Complete this form to let us know if you plan to attend this historical day at the capitol.
If one of your representatives or senators serves on the Judiciary Committee, please consider contacting them to express your support for the Governor’s bill to strengthen Maine’s reproductive health care laws.
Senator Anne Carney, Chair
Senator Donna Bailey
Senator Eric Brakey
Representative Matt Moonen, Chair
Representative John Andrews
Representative Aaron Dana
Representative David Haggan
Representative Rachel Henderson
Representative Amy Kuhn
Representative Adam Lee
Representative Stephen Moriarty
Representative Jennifer Poirier
Representative Lois Reckitt
Representative Erin Sheehan
How Gestational Bans Harm Pregnant People (From WhoNotWhen.Com)
People don’t always have timely information about their pregnancies. Many who seek abortion care later discover their pregnancies later (Find more info on later discovery of pregnancy here). Others find out new information later in their pregnancy that they couldn’t have known earlier. Therefore, abortion care should not be restricted based on time.
Abortion bans don’t solve problems. Abortion bans are legal restrictions that punish healthcare professionals for providing abortion care. Bans just delay or deny abortions for people who need them. And research shows that denying someone a wanted abortion causes real harm. Therefore, we should get rid of abortion bans altogether.
We do not live in equitable environments. Legal restrictions on abortion care have harmful, punitive effects for the people affected by them. These fall mainly on specific groups– young women, low-income women, and women of color, exacerbating existing inequities. Therefore, we should expand care, not punish those who need it.
Regardless of the circumstance, people seeking abortion are clear in their decision. Their reasons are their own and we urge you to center people who’ve had abortions when reflecting on and discussing the topic.
Restrictions applied to abortions later in pregnancy also impact how clinicians can care for and treat miscarriage and pregnancy loss.
Why Do People Seek Abortion Care Later in Pregnancy?
Research suggests that abortions take place later in pregnancy, after the first trimester, because of two factors, often working in combination [Kimport]:
New Information: People learn new information later in their pregnancy that they couldn’t have known before. Examples might include recognizing a pregnancy later, learning about a fetal health issue or emerging health condition of the pregnant person, or a disruptive life event like loss of a job or partner.
Barriers that Delay Care: Systemic social and economic inequities create financial and logistical barriers to care. People traveling from states with abortion bans face significant financial and logistical barriers to accessing the care when they want and are forced to delay.
Notes on Viability
As obstetrician–gynecologists understand, pregnancy “viability” is determined based on a number of complex factors, only one of which is gestational age. The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) recognizes that this complexity, which is different for each unique pregnancy, is best evaluated and managed within the context of a trusted relationship between clinician and patient.
As a science-based organization, ACOG works hard to combat misinformation about obstetric and gynecologic health care. Statements about "abortion up until the point of birth" or "elective abortion" are unscientific and crafted to polarize the conversation about abortion.
The word viability is used in the political arena and defined in proposed legislation without regard to medical evidence or the facts of a particular case. Questions about whether and when to access abortion care should be removed from the political context and returned to the patient and their trusted health care professional.
Personal Narratives of 2nd & 3rd Trimester Abortions
To help reduce stigma and misinformation about abortion, patients have bravely shared their experiences of needing access to abortion later in pregnancy. We encourage you to learn more:
SPONSORS: Rep. Moonen (Portland)
COMMITTEE: Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services (HCIFS)
This bill prohibits a Maine health insurance plan from imposing any deductible, copayment, coinsurance or other cost-sharing requirement for the costs of abortion services. If passed, the bill will apply to coverage in effect as of January 1st, 2024.
LD 935 completes the advances begun in 2019 when Maine’s legislature passed LD 820, An Act To Prevent Discrimination in Public and Private Insurance Coverage for Pregnant Women in Maine.
Mainers who receive health coverage through a private insurer are currently subject to copays, deductibles and coinsurance costs for abortion care that continue to make it financially inaccessible to many.
Particularly for those under high deductible insurance plans, pregnant Mainers continue to face high cost barriers to accessing abortion.
LD 935 levels the playing field on abortion access for people with all types of insurance and lifts the burden of financing off the backs of patients during a time of record inflation and rising costs of goods and services.
If one of your representatives or senators serves on the HCIFS Committee, please consider contacting them to express your support for LD 935
Senator Donna Bailey, Chair
Senator Eric Brakey
Senator Cameron Reny
Representative Anne Perry, Chair
Representative Poppy Arford
Representative Sally Cluchey
Representative Scott Cyrway
Representative Ann-Marie Mastraccio
Representative Kristi Mathieson
Representative Joshua Morris
Representative Robert Nutting
Representative Jane Pringle
Representative Gregg Swallow
When LD 935 moves out of the committee, please contact your representative and senator to urge them to vote in favor.
SPONSORS: Rep. Kuhn (Falmouth)
COMMITTEE: Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services (HCIFS)
This bill prohibits an insurer that provides medical malpractice insurance in this State from taking any adverse action against a healthcare professional that provides abortion or other reproductive health care services on the sole basis that a healthcare professional is acting in violation of another state's law or a revocation or other adverse action against a health care professional's license in another state.
- This bill would provide some measure of legal protection for abortion providers who serve patients traveling to Maine from a state where abortion is banned or severely limited.
- Since the Supreme Court Dobbs decision in June 2022, abortion seekers from states all over the country with restrictive abortion laws have traveled to Maine seeking care.
- No one should have to leave the state where they live to fulfill their pregnancy decision, but that is the situation many are now facing as nearly 40 million women of reproductive age now live in a state hostile to abortion rights.
- In meeting the needs of abortion seekers, medical providers should not have to worry about malpractice suits simply for carrying out their professional oaths and duties.
- If one of your representatives or senators serves on the HCIFS Committee, please consider contacting them to express your support for LD 616.
- Senator Donna Bailey, Chair
- Senator Eric Brakey
- Senator Cameron Reny
- Representative Anne Perry, Chair
- Representative Poppy Arford
- Representative Sally Cluchey
- Representative Scott Cyrway
- Representative Ann-Marie Mastraccio
- Representative Kristi Mathieson
- Representative Joshua Morris
- Representative Robert Nutting
- Representative Jane Pringle
- Representative Gregg Swallow
- When LD 616 moves out of the committee, please contact your representative and senator to urge them to vote in favor.
SPONSORS: Rep. Sachs (Freeport)
COMMITTEE: Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services (HCIFS)
This bill would ensure that access to health care services, including, but not limited to, screenings and treatments, are not diminished during or because of healthcare mergers and acquisitions.
This bill is currently a concept draft and specific language will be released at a later date.
This bill originates from examples of when hospital mergers result in the takeover of a healthcare system by a Catholic entity, which can threaten the availability of reproductive health care services–including tubal ligations, abortion care, contraceptive information and referrals.
Religious ideology should not determine the accessibility of a full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health care that Mainers can receive in the communities in which they live.
When mergers occur and sexual and reproductive health services become limited, this shift in access disproportionately impacts rural and low-income individuals who may have less individual access to transportation and the financial or logistical ability to travel farther for services.
- If one of your representatives or senators serves on the HCIFS Committee, please consider contacting them to express your support for LD 263.
- Senator Donna Bailey, Chair
- Senator Eric Brakey
- Senator Cameron Reny
- Representative Anne Perry, Chair
- Representative Poppy Arford
- Representative Sally Cluchey
- Representative Scott Cyrway
- Representative Ann-Marie Mastraccio
- Representative Kristi Mathieson
- Representative Joshua Morris
- Representative Robert Nutting
- Representative Jane Pringle
- Representative Gregg Swallow
- When LD 263 moves out of the committee, please contact your representative and senator to urge them to vote in favor.
This bill provides that the entire field of legislation concerning abortion is occupied and preempted by the State.
- This bill is designed to protect abortion access against potential localized attempts by anti-abortion activists to pass resolutions that declare a town or municipality as a “sanctuary city for the unborn” by upholding state abortion law as the only laws capable of governing abortion.
- You can read about one example of this type of push in a New Mexico town here.
If one of your representatives or senators serves on the Judiciary Committee, please consider contacting them to express your support for LD 1343.
Senator Anne Carney, Chair
Senator Donna Bailey
Senator Eric Brakey
Representative Matt Moonen, Chair
Representative John Andrews
Representative Aaron Dana
Representative David Haggan
Representative Rachel Henderson
Representative Amy Kuhn
Representative Adam Lee
Representative Stephen Moriarty
Representative Jennifer Poirier
Representative Lois Reckitt
Representative Erin Sheehan
When LD 1343 moves out of the committee, please contact your representative and senator to urge them to vote in favor.
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