Protecting Reproductive & Gender Re-affirming Care (H5090)
The Massachusetts Legislature passed comprehensive legislation designed to further protect and expand reproductive health care and gender-affirming services in the Commonwealth. The legislation, An Act expanding protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care, provides legal protections to abortion providers, out-of-state patients, and insurers; expands access to contraceptives, and helps ensure that women who face grave circumstances after 24 weeks of pregnancy are not forced to leave Massachusetts to access reproductive health care services.
An Act expanding protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care:
The Massachusetts Legislature passed comprehensive legislation designed to further protect and expand reproductive health care and gender-affirming services in the Commonwealth. The legislation, An Act expanding protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care, provides legal protections to abortion providers, out-of-state patients, and insurers; expands access to contraceptives, and helps ensure that women who face grave circumstances after 24 weeks of pregnancy are not forced to leave Massachusetts to access reproductive health care services.
An Act expanding protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care:
- Designates reproductive health care and gender-affirming services as legally protected health care
- Reaffirms that access to reproductive health care and gender-affirming services are a right secured by the constitution and laws of the Commonwealth
- Requires insurance coverage for abortion and abortion-related care without being subject to deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, or other cost-sharing requirements. Forbids MassHealth from charging deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, or other cost-sharing requirements for prenatal, childbirth, and post-partum care
- Updates language from the 2020 ROE Act to help ensure that patients over 24 weeks of pregnancy are able to receive an abortion in Massachusetts because of a grave fetal diagnosis that indicates the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside of the uterus without extraordinary medical interventions and requires that those decisions are made between the patient and treating physician
- Requires the Department of Public Health (DPH) to issue a statewide standing order to authorize licensed pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception
- Clarifies that vending machines may dispense over-the-counter drugs, such as Plan B
- Ensures access to medication abortion on all public college and university campuses
- Allows individuals engaged in the provision, facilitation, or promotion of reproductive and gender-affirming health care to enroll in the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Address Confidentiality Program (ACP)
- Prohibiting the Boards of Registration of various health professions from disciplining or taking adverse action on an application for registration of any person who assists with reproductive health care or gender-affirming services
- Prohibiting Massachusetts law enforcement from assisting any investigation by federal authorities, another state, or private citizens related to legally protected reproductive and gender-affirming health care provided in the Commonwealth
- Prohibiting medical malpractice insurers from discriminating against a provider that offers reproductive or gender-affirming health care services
- Protecting Massachusetts residents from efforts to enforce court rulings from other states based on health care activity that is legally protected in Massachusetts
- Prohibiting any Massachusetts court from ordering a person in Massachusetts to give testimony or produce documents for use in connection with any proceeding in an out-of-state tribunal concerning legally protected health care activity
- Protecting Massachusetts residents and providers from lawsuits seeking to penalize health care activities legally protected in Massachusetts
- Prohibiting a justice from issuing a summons for a person in Massachusetts to testify or appear in a court in another state in prosecutions or grand jury investigations related to legally protected health care activity
- Preventing the Governor from extraditing someone to another state to face charges for receiving or providing abortion-related or gender-affirming care, except when required by federal law or unless the acts forming the basis of the investigation would also constitute an offense if occurring entirely in Massachusetts
- Signed by the Governor on July 29, 2022
- Requires motorists to keep a safe distance from pedestrians, bicyclists, mobility device users, and other vulnerable users such as those riding skateboards and scooters, among others.
- The bill requires certain medium and heavy-duty trucks that are leased or purchased by the Commonwealth to be equipped with lateral protective devices, convex and cross-over mirrors, and backup cameras.
- The Governor returned with amendments
