Healey signs bill expanding shield law
Surrounded by health care advocates and curious tourists peering into nurses hall, Governor Maura healey signed an expanded shield law Thursday giving patients and providers in Massachusetts a new layer of defense against out-of-state intrusion into reproductive and transgender care.
“no one is going to come to Massachusetts and attack our people, attack our institutions, attack our providers because we believe in freedom,” healey said. “It’s why we’ve continued, collectively, to take action, and we will continue to take action as necessary. We owe it to the people of Massachusetts. And you know what? We owe it to Americans. We owe it to this country.”
Attendees at the bill-signing ceremony represented planned parenthood league of Massachusetts, Reproductive Equity now, Aclu Massachusetts, GLBTQ legal Advocates and Defenders, fenway health, health Imperatives, brigham and Women’s hospital, and the Massachusetts Medical Society, among others.
At a time of enhanced federal scrutiny and legal threats largely led by Republicans in other states, lawmakers last week moved to update the 2022 shield law intended to protect providers and patients of reproductive care, including abortions, and transgender care. Supporters say additional steps are needed to plug gaps in existing law in the wake of the US Supreme court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The expanded shield law limits the release of sensitive data, allows prescription labels to display a practice name instead of an individual physician’s name, and codifies a state requirement for abortion care to be provided in emergencies when medically necessary. The anonymity provision for prescription labels is linked to the case of a doctor in new York — which has a shield law — who’s faced a felony charge in louisiana and a hefty penalty in Texas for providing abortion medication.
The law also blocks courts here from considering or admitting cases of abuse, neglect, or maltreatment for parents who support their children in receiving transgender care.
“It’s a true honor today to celebrate a law that will save lives, including my own, and so many other trans people who I know,” said Dallas Ducar, who’s transgender and is fenway health’s executive vice president of donor engagement and external relations. “This will save families, will protect families, and remind our country what leadership looks like.”
In a statement to the news Service, the Massachusetts family Institute warned about the law’s impact on children.
“Governor healey and Massachusetts legislators have sadly, but predictably, bowed to ideology instead of protecting Massachusetts citizens, especially children,” MFI general counsel Sam Whiting said. “This ‘shield law’ only shields activist healthcare providers from transparency and accountability, all while infringing on the rights of other states to protect children from abortion and irreversible gender mutilation procedures.”
healey called the law a “necessary step forward.”
house Judiciary committee chair Michael Day said last week that the urgency of the effort to update the shield law “has been dictated by the wild rhetoric as well as the acts taken by both this presidential administration, as well as several of our sister states, in the field that this bill covers: the right for a woman to control her body and the right for transgender individuals to be treated as equals here in the commonwealth.”
In new hampshire last week, Governor Kelly Ayotte signed two bills banning transgender care for minors, including puberty blockers or hormone treatments, as well as chest surgeries, according to nhpr.