Gov. Janet Mills addressed a crowd in Portland on June 24, the two year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which ended the legal right to abortion. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
Marking the two year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to end the legal right to abortion, Maine Gov. Janet Mills joined state lawmakers and reproductive rights advocates in Portland on Monday to mobilize voters to turn out for reproductive freedom in November.
In the past two years, 21 states have enacted abortion bans or restricted abortion earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade, which had generally recognized the right to abortion in 1973. The high court overturned this precedent on June 24, 2022, in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
At least 100 people gathered in Monument Square on Monday to hear from Speaker of the Maine House Rachel Talbot Ross, Executive Director of Maine Women’s Lobby Destie Hohman Sprague and others who highlighted the legal protections Maine has added for reproductive health care in contrast to restrictions passed in many Republican-led states.
However, the speakers cautioned that Maine’s reproductive rights landscape is subject to the whims of the party in power and urged attendees to encourage others to vote in the November election to maintain the state’s Democratic trifecta.
“The Dobbs decision is what created our rage, fueled our rage, but we cannot let rage be what keeps us out here,” Hohman Sprague said. “It needs to be hope. There’s got to be hope for a better future, a more expansive future, a future that protects all of us — people of color, trans people, rural people, poor people. We need to demand the rights and access to control our lives and our bodies and that’s what we’re here for today.”
A sign during Portland rally on the two year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
Reproductive rights in Maine
Maine’s abortion laws are currently some of the least restrictive in the country.
In 2023, the Legislature narrowly passed a bill in a mostly party line vote to allow abortions at any time during pregnancy if deemed medically necessary by a doctor. Before that, Maine law only allowed abortion after the fetus could be viable outside the womb, about 24 weeks, if the pregnant person’s life was at risk. The 2023 bill, introduced by Mills, was hotly contested with hundreds showing up for the hearing and most testimony coming from opponents.
That state law and others, including a requirement for private insurers to cover abortion and another to prevent cities and towns from enacting restrictive abortion rules, are subject to change depending on those in office. During the rally, Mills said this is why Maine still needs a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive freedom.
A proposal to enshrine the right to abortion, fertility treatments, and other reproductive health care in the Maine State Constitution fell short of the votes needed to put the question on the November ballot.
“We still need a constitutional amendment here in Maine to protect abortion care once and for all, so no politician can tell you or me, or our kids or grandkids, what rights they have or do not have,” Mills said.
Despite the failure of the constitutional amendment, the speakers celebrated other protections passed by the Legislature this session.
A “shield law,” which will take effect mid-July, protects the state’s health professionals who provide reproductive and gender-affirming care from being targeted by other states’ bans.
“We passed laws that make clear that we treat abortion for exactly as it is — a safe, medical procedure,” Talbot Ross said, “and we made it clear that we trust medical professionals to provide care that is in their best judgment. We strengthened protections for health care providers so they may offer care to people traveling to Maine […] for abortion care safely without threats for their ability to practice medicine.”
This proposal spurred some of the lengthiest floor debates during the last session, largely about what the shield law would and would not allow. In particular, conservative lawmakers and groups circulated false claims dismissed by legal authorities that the bill would permit kidnapping and trafficking.
Talbot Ross said she and other state lawmakers took action to protect reproductive freedoms “because we knew Maine people are with us and Maine people are counting on us,” however cautioned that “the Dobbs decision and the rollback of our rights wasn’t just about abortion.”
“This is about the criminalization of our health care,” Talbot Ross said. “And, if this can be taken back, what do you think is going to happen to all our other rights if we aren’t still fighting? This is just the beginning.”
Maine House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross encouraged rallygoers in Portland on June 24, 2024 to fight against what she described as attacks on bodily autonomy. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
A call to mobilize voters
The governor also used the rally as an opportunity to contrast the reproductive rights records of the likely presidential candidates, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.
“Let’s be clear,” Mills said. “The damage that [the Dobbs] decision has wrought on millions of people across this country falls at the feet of a single person, one man: Donald Trump.”
Mills attributed the overturning of Roe to Trump’s Supreme Court nominations and expressed skepticism about his shift on abortion law this spring, when the former president said he thinks abortion policy should be left up to the states and backed away from supporting a national ban.
“Do you trust him?” Mills asked the crowd, which responded, “No!”
“I sure as hell don’t,” she added.
The potential implications of another Trump presidency on abortion rights was also a focus of Mills and other Democratic officials at the Democratic state convention earlier in June. On Monday, speakers reiterated their belief that actions by Trump and Republican-led states will have consequences come November.
“The victims of these extreme policies and laws across our country,” Mills said, “those victims — they may be Republicans, or Democrats, they may be Greens or independents, or just non-political — but this year they will be standing up for their rights. They will be voting.”
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