Gov. Janet Mills has signed a new law that allows health care providers to remove their names from labels when prescribing abortion pills.
The law, LD 538, was introduced by state Rep. Sally Cluchey, D-Bowdoinham, who said she has heard from prescribers who say they have been threatened or harassed for prescribing mifepristone, an abortion medication that is increasingly used for abortions.
Medication abortions account for 63% of all abortions in the United States, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a national abortion-rights nonprofit.
In a previous interview with the Press Herald, Cluchey said that health care providers who have prescribed abortion medication “have faced harassment through phone calls, test messages and online threats” and have been “stalked, targeted with bomb threats and harassed in their homes.”
However, abortion opponents, including Rep. Marygrace Caroline Cimino, R-Bridgton, said the real reason for the bill is to shield abortion providers from criminal charges from other states.
“The purpose of this bill is clear — to protect doctors from criminal prosecution when prescribing these (drugs) to patients in other states where abortion is restricted,” Cimino said in May.
New York passed a similar bill this year days after a New York physician was charged with prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant girl in Louisiana.
Maine is one of a several states that also has passed “shield laws” that provide health care workers with legal protection from charges filed by other states for prescribing abortion medication or providing abortion care.
Abortions were legal nationwide for five decades until a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned Roe v. Wade, paving the way for states to ban abortion.
Thirteen states have passed total abortion bans since the 2022 decision, while Maine has expanded abortion rights, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Maine previously outlawed abortion at fetal viability — typically considered to be between 22 and 24 weeks, with exceptions for the health and life of the mother — but removed the ban in 2023. Abortion rights advocates said that the vague wording of the law made it difficult to obtain abortions in Maine even when the health of the mother was in question, and the new law leaves the decision between doctors and their patients.
