Consent Law Change Led To Earlier Abortions

Backers and critics of the so-called ROE Act, sat next to each other wearing color-coded shirts in the Gardner Auditorium at a public hearing in June 2019.Sam Doran sdoran@statehousenews.com

State House News Service

Certain teenagers managed to access abortions earlier in their pregnancies following passage of a 2020 law that scrapped the requirement for parental consent or a judge's approval for 16- and 17-year-olds, according to new research from Massachusetts reproductive care providers.

Citing that improved access to care, providers highlighted their support for legislation pending this session that would allow all young people under age 16 to also self-consent to receiving an abortion.

The gestational age, or length of pregnancy, for 16- and 17-year-olds getting an abortion dropped by an average of five days compared to before and after the Roe Act took effect in December 2020, according to a Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Former Gov. Charlie Baker, who said he supported reproductive health care rights but didn't agree with scrapping parental consent for minors, vetoed that section of the law, which took effect following a legislative override.

Isabel Fulcher, the study's principal researcher, said delays in accessing care can increase abortion costs and limit patients' options.

"A few days' delay can mean the difference between a patient being able to access medication abortion, which is often the preferred method for young people, or requiring a procedural abortion," Fulcher said in a statement Monday. "By demonstrating that eliminating the parental consent requirement for some young people improves access to time-sensitive care, we hope these finding[s] will encourage lawmakers to remove this barrier for all young people."

Mary Ellen Siegler, spokesperson for the pro-life Massachusetts Family Institute, told the News Service that "easier access to abortions for minors is nothing to celebrate."

"Excluding parents from a life-altering decision like abortion for their minor daughter is indefensible," Siegler said in response to PPLM's new study. "A still-developing teen cannot fully comprehend the emotional and physical toll of ending her unborn child's life. Abortion not only ends an innocent life but also jeopardizes the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of young women."

PPLM promoted a Sen. Liz Miranda bill (SD 2575) that would eliminate parental consent or the alternative court approval process for "all young people" to access abortions.

Invoking the lack of federal abortion protections, PPLM called Miranda's bill "the next step for Massachusetts to make our reproductive health laws equitable by ensuring young people have equal right to decide their reproductive health decisions, no matter their family circumstances."

Siegler called Miranda's bill "reckless" and said it "will only further hurt minors and enable abusers and traffickers to exploit vulnerable girls while silencing the very people who love and protect them most."

The Judiciary Committee last session sent bills lowering the age of self-consent for abortions, plus other measures to reduce barriers to abortion access, to study. Anti-abortion groups argued removing parental consent would improperly leave parents uninvolved in their children's major medical decisions.

PPLM contends Miranda's bill would protect a "small but highly vulnerable" group of minors who are worried about the possibility of "dangerous retaliation," including violence, from their parents if they disclose their pregnancies. In 2023, state data show 77 Massachusetts minors under age 16 got abortions.

Previous research from PPLM found minors who did not secure parental consent for an abortion were twice as likely to become disqualified from taking medication abortion, which can be used up to around 10 weeks of pregnancy. Minors who needed to seek a judge's approval experienced an average two-week delay in receiving an abortion, with that delay disproportionately felt among individuals of color and those with low incomes.

PPLM's new study analyzed the gestational age that teenagers ages 16-19 received abortions from 2017 to 2022. Minors ages 16-17 received 749 abortions during the study, while the control group of those ages 18-19 had 2,773 abortions.

"Timeliness of care is a key quality metric in health care. By enabling young people to access abortion more quickly, the ROE Act improved quality of care for this group of young people," Elizabeth Janiak, director of social science research at PPLM, said.