Bishops Reject Healey’s Abortion ‘Emergency’ Preamble
Massachusetts’ four Catholic bishops say taking of human life is not health care and urge a culture that chooses life.
On November 7, the four Roman Catholic bishops of Massachusetts released a joint statement expressing deep disappointment at Gov. Maura Healey’s decision to block suspension of the state’s abortion-expansion statute while a repeal referendum proceeds.
Archbishop Richard G. Henning of Boston, Bishop William D. Byrne of Springfield, Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester, and Bishop Edgar da Cunha of Fall River answered the governor’s emergency preamble, filed Friday, November 6—two days before Chapter 188 was set to take effect on November 8. The measure prevents the law from being held in abeyance during the referendum process.
Petition Drive and Constitutional Threshold
Supporters of the Repeal188 effort had gathered more than 113,000 certified signatures seeking to repeal Chapter 188, which permits abortion up to birth without restrictions. Under state rules, 37,289 certified signatures are required to place a referendum on the 2028 ballot; 49,716 would have suspended the law until the November 2028 vote. The Massachusetts Constitution limits emergency measures to laws declared “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety or convenience.”
The bishops wrote that they “respectfully and passionately disagree that abortion, the taking of human life, may be considered health care,” and that no emergency justifies further expansion of “the existing and already radically permissive law.” They called on legislators and “all men and women of good will” to reconsider a culture marked by a “utilitarian and merciless approach to the elderly, the sick, the vulnerable, and the unborn.”
Appeal to the Teaching of the Church
Their statement cited Pope Leo XIV, speaking Saturday in Uruguay to President Yamandú Orsi and diplomats, who affirmed that “the unborn already belong to the human family” and that “the right to life is the indispensable foundation of every other human right.” The bishops thanked coalition partners and volunteers, urged Catholic communities to assist expectant mothers and fathers in crisis, and quoted Deuteronomy 30:19-20: “Choose life!”
In a separate response, Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, called the preamble “an utter disregard” for constituents and said the governor “clearly demonstrates” allegiance to the abortion lobby. The coalition is preparing a two-year public education campaign ahead of the November 2028 referendum.
The bishops’ intervention frames the dispute not merely as a procedural clash over signatures and emergency powers, but as a question of whether the law may redefine the deliberate ending of unborn human life as ordinary medical care—an account the Church has consistently rejected in defense of the dignity of every person from conception.