Massachusetts eliminates 24-week abortion gestational limit; neonatologist raises concerns over prenatal diagnosis accuracy

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, removing the state's 24-week gestational limit on abortion. The law grants physicians discretion to determine when a termination is appropriate and is scheduled to take effect within 90 days of signing.

Dr. Robin Pierucci, a neonatologist, told Fox News Digital she could not "reconcile" the law with her clinical experience caring for extremely premature infants. Her primary stated concern was the reliability of prenatal screening tests, which she described as providing percentage-based probabilities rather than diagnostic certainty. "There's something called the spectrum of disease, meaning I can't tell usually from just a picture how much or how little the patient's going to be affected," she said. "It's very disturbing that we're making life and death decisions with so little information."

Pierucci also pointed to advances in neonatal medicine that allow some infants born as early as 22 weeks to survive, arguing this creates what she described as an ethical contradiction for physicians who simultaneously work to save premature births within the same gestational window now covered by the law. She said the law does not account for perinatal palliative care, an alternative she described as providing medical and emotional support for families of infants with severe or fatal diagnoses.