Vermont Committee Passes Radical Bill Legalizing Abortions Up to Birth

Abortion rights advocates say the law simply puts existing practice into law. Those who oppose abortion say the legislation will allow mothers and physicians to end a pregnancy at any point until birth.

Could both sides be right? What is a late-term abortion? We decided to check the facts.

Asked about his position on the law, Coyne pointed to section 9497, which prohibits public entities from restricting abortion access.

“This section prohibits (makes illegal) any restrictions placed upon a woman’s right to have an abortion. No such restrictions are named in the bill, but would include any restrictions involving gestational age of the unborn child,” he wrote in an email.

“The bill, therefore, codifies a woman’s right to have an abortion at any time during a pregnancy, for any or no reason, up until full-term birth,” he added.

That’s true, if medical professionals did not adhere to their own policies and ethical practices. But it’s not a change from the current legal restrictions — or complete lack thereof — on abortion in Vermont.

The Catholic Church, which is opposed to all abortions, has weighed into recent debates in other states.

A couple weeks ago Politifact interrogated a viral image claiming that “A New York law makes it ‘now perfectly legal to murder’ a baby a minute before it would be born.” Catholic leaders in New York had said the law removed “all state restrictions on late-term procedures.”

The viral image got a “False” rating from Politifact because it “oversimplifies and distorts what the New York law allows.” The New York law includes language that allows abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy only if “there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.”

Vermont’s law has no such language.

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