AUGUSTA, Maine — The Democratic-led Maine House of Representatives advanced a bill on Wednesday that aims to protect out-of-state patients who get abortions or gender-affirming care here from legal action in conservative-led states.
It is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling overturning federal abortion rights and the pastiche of state laws that have followed. Roughly half of states have moved to ban or severely restrict abortions since then, while more than a dozen others have so-called “shield” laws that have emerged as a Democratic retort.
Democrats passed the measure in an initial 80-70 vote on Wednesday against unified Republican opposition. The vote came after a charged debate in which Rep. Michael Lemelin, R-Chelsea, was ruled out of order after blaming the Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston for God’s reaction to an abortion-rights expansion passed last year.
The new bill, sponsored by Rep. Anne Perry, D-Calais, affirms Maine’s laws governing abortion and gender-affirming care as a legal right while attempting to outlaw “interference” by other states. It attempts to protect doctors and patients from prosecution and litigation in other states and allows them to use Maine courts to sue states pursuing action under their laws.
“What we are proposing here is to protect our providers and frankly, to protect our brothers and sisters who are fellow Americans if they choose to come here for legal care,” Rep. Valli Geiger, D-Rockland, said.
Maine’s bill combines two cultural issues that have defined national politics over the last few years. It was a top priority this year for abortion-rights groups including Planned Parenthood. Top prosecutors in 16 Republican-led states threatened to sue the state over the bill.
Attorney General Aaron Frey rejected any legal case against the bill. His fellow Democrats pushed past unanimous opposition from Maine sheriffs, whose association asked that lawmakers strike a part of the law prohibiting police from cooperating with another state’s investigation if they know it solely revolves around abortion or gender-affirming care.
Republicans mobilized against the bill, especially after the language emerged less than a week before a public hearing on it last month. The evangelical Christian Civic League of Maine called it worse than the abortion-rights expansion passed last year. Opponents said it would allow trafficking of children, although separate laws against those crimes would remain.
“We must protect our children [and] get them to the age of adulthood intact so they can make mature decisions for what is right for their life,” Rep. David Haggan, R-Hampden, said.
Perry’s bill faces further action in both chambers, but the House vote gives it a clear path to passage because Democrats have a wider 22-13 majority in the Senate. Mills championed last year’s abortion-rights expansion, which only advanced by one vote in the House at first due to opposition from a small group of anti-abortion Democrats.
Two of those members — Reps. Bruce White of Waterville and Mike Lajoie of Lewiston — broke with their parties to vote with Republicans on Wednesday. Roughly four hours before the vote, the Christian Civic League sent an alert to members asking them to lobby them, seven other Democrats and one liberal-leaning independent in opposition to the measure.
“Please pray for the Lord to intervene and stop the deception and destruction we are witnessing here in Augusta,” Carroll Conley, the group’s executive director, wrote.
