Planned Parenthood leaders and advocates urge lawmakers to remove barriers for young patients with Abortion Access Act 

BOSTON – Today, leaders and advocates from Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) and the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts (PPAF) testified in support of An Act to Enhance Access to Abortion (S.1114/H.1599), or the Abortion Access Act, urging lawmakers to eliminate parental involvement laws for abortion, prevent dangerous targeted regulations on providers, and take steps to increase transparency and education around reproductive health care.  

The legislation would expand abortion access and strengthen reproductive freedom and health equity in Massachusetts through several measures, including: 

1. Striking all parental involvement laws for abortion in Massachusetts. Doing so would empower pregnant people under the age of 16 to consent to abortion care without requiring parental consent or a judge’s approval, finally setting an equitable standard for minors’ ability to access all pregnancy related care. 
2. Dismantling barriers that could delay or deny abortion care, and proactively preventing the state from adopting targeted, medically unnecessary restrictions on reproductive health care providers, also known as TRAP laws. 
3. Requiring the Department of Public Health to maintain and annually update a list of reproductive health care provider facilities in the state, and to educate the public about the lack of medical services provided at anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. 

“TRAP laws are cruel, burdensome, and impede a medical professional’s ability to deliver expert health care. The ROE Act proactively codified abortion and removed harmful TRAP laws from our books, preparing us for what was then a hypothetical that Roe v. Wade would be overturned. Now, with the future of abortion access uncertain and under constant threat nationally, we should take preventative steps again to safeguard abortion access,” said Dominique Lee, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. 

“Last year, PPLM's ASPIRE Center, our research arm, initiated the Minors' Abortion Access Research and Advocacy Project, conducting a national analysis of state laws hindering young people’s access to safe and affordable abortion care in a post-Roe environment. Because of our parental consent requirement, Massachusetts received a "D," one of the lowest grades for minor abortion access,” said Sheila Ramirez, Director of Health Policy and Government Relations for the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. 

PPLM’s Director of Social Science Research, Elizabeth Janiak, shared results from a new study conducted by researchers at PPLM, UMass Memorial Health, UMass Chan Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School that analyzed the ROE Act’s impact on minors’ ability to access abortion. Their study showed that the ROE Act’s removal of the parental consent requirement for abortion in minors aged16-17 resulted in lower gestational age at the time of abortion by an average of 5 days. 

“Our preliminary analysis found that the ROE Act resulted in an estimated decrease of 5 days in average gestational age at abortion among 16- and 17-year-olds. Presenting for abortion care as early as possible gives young people maximum flexibility to choose the abortion method that is right for them, whether that is abortion using pills or an aspiration procedure,” said Janiak. “Teens 15 and younger represent the most vulnerable abortion patients, making subjecting them to the judicial bypass process and the delays it causes particularly cruel. Young people deserve expeditious access to care just as much as all other abortion patients.”  

A 2019 study also led by Janiak and researchers at PPLM, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School demonstrated that Massachusetts’ parental involvement law for abortion resulted in clinically significant delays for minors in accessing abortion care. On average, young people who needed to bypass the parental consent requirement through the courts were delayed by an average of 15 days in getting their abortion – a difference that resulted in 1 in 3 young people who used judicial bypass being ineligible for medication abortion by the time they presented for care.  

“These young people at 14 or 15 years old are forced to miss days of class to navigate a complex and often daunting legal process. I worked with a 14-year-old patient who didn’t even know how to say the word attorney. Because of these delays, I have personally seen patients turned away from local hospitals and directed to New York City or DC because they’ve missed the window to have a legal abortion in Massachusetts. This is not just a matter of inconvenience, it’s a direct threat to their ability to access safe and timely care and to control their own body and future,” said Katie Murphy, a Patient Navigator at PPLM who assists patients in overcoming logistical and financial barriers to abortion access. 

“For the teens I work with, a lot of whom are immigrants or whose primary language is not English, getting an abortion they desperately want can be almost impossible, and the judicial bypass process provides yet another unnecessary and unfair barrier to their care,” said Jailene Delgado, a Patient Navigator at PPLM. “Expanding abortion access by eliminating the parental consent and judicial bypass law is also an equity issue.” 

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