What my son's ultrasound taught me about abortion — and Massachusetts ignores

My son turned 1 year old last month, but I still have his ultrasound pictures up on the fridge. They were the first time I got to see his little hands, his feet, and even his eyes open wide and looking, somehow, right at me. He was 20 weeks along in that picture. Already kicking. Already reaching. Already becoming the boy who now pulls himself up on that same refrigerator door.

I thought of him — of those pictures curling on my fridge — as I watched Massachusetts Democrat Gov. Maura Healey sign a law this week that strips protections from every baby at the same stage of pregnancy against late-term abortion.

The states new law, the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, guts existing legislation that restricted abortions at 24 weeks and later to cases involving the mothers life, physical or mental health, or severe fetal diagnoses, and replaces those specific statutory conditions with a sweeping new standard stating that "an abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician." No gestational limit. No requirement that any particular maternal or fetal condition be present.

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Surrounded by cheering supporters at the signing, Healey insisted the new law is meant to protect women. Protect them from what, exactly? Massachusetts women facing the truly horrific scenarios — pregnancies that turned fatal for mother or child — already had access to abortion under the states prior law. This bill doesnt hand them a single protection they didnt already have.

What it does do is remove the specific guardrails that governed abortions at such a late stage — namely, the requirement that a physician determine that the abortion was necessary to protect the mothers life, physical or mental health, or was warranted because of a lethal or extraordinarily grave fetal diagnosis.

Under the new law, none of those circumstances have to be established in the statute. The legal standard is simply the physicians professional judgment.

Its worth pausing on whats actually happening inside the womb at 24 weeks. Just like my son in his ultrasound pictures, babies at 24 weeks have a fully formed face, fingerprints, and a heartbeat thats been audible for months. Their lungs are still maturing, but their inner ears are developed enough to hear voices, and they respond to sound and touch.

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This is also around the point in pregnancy known as viability — the gestational age at which, with intensive NICU care, a baby born prematurely has a real chance of survival outside the womb. My sister-in-law is a NICU nurse and has cared for several of these infants, some as young as 22 and 23 weeks old. She has watched their mothers sit through countless sleepless nights, praying for tiny lungs to grow strong enough and hearts to keep beating. It is a testament to modern medicine how often those prayers are answered.

So what, exactly, separates the baby fighting for his life in the NICU from the baby electively aborted at the very same st