Bishop Robert Barron reacted to the newly signed Massachusetts law permitting abortion for any reason throughout the entirety of a pregnancy, lamenting the state of the Democratic Party’s attitude towards abortion.
“The governor of Massachusetts just signed into law a statute that permits abortion up until the moment of birth, as long as mother and doctor give the go-ahead,” wrote Bishop Barron on social media on Wednesday, August 12. Barron, the Bishop of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, is also the founder of Word on Fire, a media organisation.
Healey, who identifies as Catholic, signed the bill into law on Monday, a few days after it was approved by the Massachusetts legislature.
“Please understand what this means. A fully-formed child, moments before exiting the birth canal, can be eviscerated, chopped into pieces, have its head crushed or skin burned off – all under the full protection of Massachusetts law,” said Barron.
More so than the content of the law, Barron found it “particularly gross” that Healey released a video of her signing the bill into law, surrounded by a crowd of women.
“They were clapping and cackling with delight because what can only be called infanticide can now be practised with impunity in their state,” he said.
Catholic Democrats did not always have this attitude towards abortion, noted Barron.
“I’m old enough to remember when Mario Cuomo, the devoutly Catholic governor of New York, admitted that, though he found abortion personally repugnant, he was, after tortured wrestling with his conscience, willing to give it limited protection of law,” he said.
“How far we have fallen from agonised and conflicted Cuomo to the present governor of Massachusetts and her entourage gleefully applauding the murder of children,” said Bishop Barron.
Cuomo served as governor of New York from 1983 to 1995, after having previously been the state’s lieutenant governor and secretary of state. He defended his position on abortion in a 1984 speech at the University of Notre Dame.
“I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant or nonbeliever, or as anything else you choose,” said Cuomo in the speech. “We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might someday force theirs on us.”
At the time, there were calls for his excommunication. In 2019, his son, Gov Andrew Cuomo, signed into law the “Reproductive Health Act”, which fully decriminalised abortion. In New York, the state’s constitution now protects the right to an abortion.
