This story will be updated.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Leading Democrats including Gov. Janet Mills on Tuesday unveiled several measures aimed at expanding abortion access in Maine, including one allowing late-term abortions if doctors deem them medically necessary.
That change would further loosen Maine’s already liberal set of abortion laws, which are governed by a 1993 law that codified abortion rights. The procedure is legal in Maine until fetal viability — generally considered to be 24 weeks or so into a pregnancy — and afterward when it is necessary to protect the life or the health of the mother.
The Maine law took on more importance last year after the conservative high court overturned federal abortion rights and allowed states to ban them. Abortion was one of the dominant issues of the 2022 campaigns here and across the country, with Mills and other Democrats raising the specter of restrictions if former Gov. Paul LePage and Republicans gained power.
But Mills won and Democrats held the Legislature. They are now proposing a raft of abortion-access bills that would set aside the viability standard for abortions deemed medically necessary, seek to make it easier for Maine medical professionals to perform abortions for women who live in more restrictive states and bar cities and towns from restricting access.
At a Tuesday news conference, Mills relayed the story of a Maine woman who discovered 32 weeks into her pregnancy that her fetus had a rare condition that led to broken bones in the womb and would not allow him to breathe if he was born. She went to Colorado for an abortion because Maine’s law would not allow her to get one.
“Fundamentally, these decisions are decisions that should be made by a woman and her medical provider,” Mills said.
Democrats now can push through smaller changes to abortion law changes, although Republicans hold enough votes to block the two-thirds majorities needed to pass a more sweeping state constitutional amendment to guarantee abortion access.
