Abortion in Massachusetts
She had branches in several other cities including Boston and Philadelphia, as well as having traveling agents working for the company who sold her "Female Monthly Pills".
[13] As of 2017[update], Washington State, New Mexico, Illinois, Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey allow qualified non-physicians to prescribe drugs for medical abortions only.
[15][16] The law stated: "No abortion may be performed, except by a physician, and only if it is necessary to save the life of the mother, or if a continuation of her pregnancy will impose on her a substantial risk of grave impairment of her physical or mental health.
[5] In the 1972 US Supreme Court case Eisenstadt v. Baird, the focus was on the issue of physicians' ability to prescribe contraceptive medications only to married couples.
The US Supreme Court ruled that single individuals had a right to buy contraceptives, and the law could not be used to limit distribution based on marital status.
[20] The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.
The Court ruled that attempts by Massachusetts to limit the ability of minors to get abortions by requiring parental consent or judicial reviews were unconstitutional.
[20] In 2014, in McCullen v. Coakley, the US Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law that had legalized a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics in the state in 2007.
[23] In 2001, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin did not provide any residence related data regarding abortions performed in the state to the Centers for Disease Control.
[35] In 2004, then-Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke said he would not give communion to 2004 presidential candidate and Massachusetts senator John Kerry, in part because of his position on abortion.
[36][37] Kerry's own Archbishop Sean O'Malley refused to specify the applicability of his earlier statement that such Catholics are in a state of grave sin and cannot properly receive communion.
[36] According to Margaret Ross Sammons, Kerry's campaign was sufficiently damaged by the threat to withhold communion that it may have cost him the election.
[38] A PEW research poll finding that 74% of residents supported the right to an abortion in all or most cases, the highest percentage of any state in the country.
[7] On December 30, 1994, two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts.
