113,000 Massachusetts Voters Signed to Pause a Late-Term Abortion Law. Healey Called an Emergency.

More than 113,000 Massachusetts voters signed their names to put a hold on the state’s new late-term abortion law until the people could vote on it. Gov. Maura Healey made sure the hold never happened.

On Friday, Nov. 6, the same day the signatures were due, Healey filed what Massachusetts calls an emergency preamble with Secretary of State William Galvin. It put the law into effect on the spot and shut the door on any suspension for the next two years, WBUR reported. The petition drive can still put repeal on the 2028 ballot. What it can’t do anymore is pause the law while voters wait.

This week, as the clerks count, the fight has moved to a simpler question that pro-life groups keep asking. What exactly is the emergency?

What the law changes

The law is Chapter 188 of the Acts of 2026, titled “An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care.” The Legislature rushed it through in July before formal sessions ended, and Healey signed it on Aug. 10.

Before it, Massachusetts allowed abortions at or after 24 weeks only under a short list of conditions tied to the life or health of the mother or a fatal problem with the baby. The new law strikes those four conditions and leaves the decision to the doctor’s professional judgment. GBH put it bluntly: “Now, anyone in Massachusetts can legally get an abortion at any point in their pregnancy, as long as they have a doctor’s signoff.”

113,477 signatures, filed on deadline day

The repeal drive is run by the Compassionate Care Coalition, led by Massachusetts Citizens for Life and Massachusetts Family Action. Its chair, Sam Miele, told WBUR the group delivered 113,477 signatures already certified by local town clerks.

That is about three times the roughly 37,000 needed to put repeal on the 2028 ballot, and more than double the roughly 49,700 needed to freeze the law in the meantime, according to Ballotpedia. Under the state constitution’s referendum article, that second number is the one that matters. Hit it, and the law is suspended until voters decide.

Healey didn’t wait to find out. The Boston Globe reported that as late as that Wednesday she told reporters her office was still “evaluating” the move. By Friday afternoon it was done.

Her side of the argument is in her letter to Galvin. “The promise of the act must not be delayed when patients are already experiencing the consequences of the existing restrictions,” she wrote. “I therefore declare that it is in the public interest that the act take effect immediately, and I declare that act to be an emergency law.” She posted her case on 𝕏 the same afternoon.

Her number for the emergency is nine. In a Substack post, Healey said “at least nine patients” had been denied care in Massachusetts since August. That count comes from the advocacy group Reproductive Equity Now, which said it knows of at least nine patients with serious pregnancy complications who couldn’t get the procedure in the state while they waited for the law to start. The group’s own release says providers had estimated about one such patient a month.

Nine cases in three months, counted by an advocacy group, is the emergency Healey used to set aside more than 113,000 signatures.

A power written for real emergencies

The tool comes from Article 48 of the state constitution, the part that gives citizens the referendum. It lets a governor skip the suspension by declaring that “the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety or convenience” requires a law to take effect right away, and by laying out the facts of the emergency.

Healey has used it before on a hot-button law. When gun owners gathered signatures against her sweeping 2024 gun law, she put that one into effect early too. Voters got their say this month on Question 9, and GBH reports about two-thirds chose to keep it. That history is why her opponents are taking nothing for granted in 2028.

The pushback has been loud. Massachusetts’ four Catholic bishops issued a statement over the weekend condemning the declaration, according to The Boston Report, citing the Boston Herald. Healey is Catholic, and some Catholics online have called on the church to excommunicate her. The Catholic League published its own piece questioning why the law had to be an emergency at all.

How the 2028 vote would work

Galvin’s office began checking signatures on Nov. 6, and Ballotpedia says that review was expected to take one to two weeks. Once the petition is certified, the question goes on the November 2028 ballot.

The bar to repeal is higher than a simple win. The state constitution says the law is wiped out only if a majority votes against it and those “no” votes add up to at least 30 percent of everyone who casts a ballot that day. In a presidential year, with high turnout, that is a real but reachable target for a coalition that just gathered 113,000 signatures in a few months.

Healey says she will live with the result. “The repeal campaign can continue its work, and Massachusetts voters will have their say,” she wrote. “If they choose to repeal the law, we will respect their decision.”

That is the part the 113,000 signers will hold her to. They asked for the people to decide before the law took effect. They’ll now have to wait two years to decide after it did.