ABORTION ISSUES

JUDICIAL ACTION

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is no right to abortion in the Constitution and overturned holdings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, thereby allowing states to regulate or prohibit abortion.

But in 2024, abortion activists in the Maryland General Assembly initiated the “Reproductive Freedom” ballot question, that amended the Maryland Constitution to create a fundamental right to abortion at the state level that may only be restricted if the State has a “compelling interest” and by the “least restrictive means”.

INFORMED CONSENT

Many women who undergo abortions later regret that they were not given full information about their unborn child beforehand. MDRTL supports the “Women’s Right to Know Act", which would restore Maryland’s repealed informed consent law to ensure women are provided facts about the medical risks associated with abortion, available alternatives, local resources available to her, and nonjudgmental, scientifically accurate medical facts, in addition to the right to view an ultrasound to see the development of her preborn child before making this permanent and life-affecting decision. 

PARENTAL RIGHTS

Laws are in effect in 31 states requiring notification or consent of at least one parent (or authorization by a judge) before an abortion can be performed on a minor. Maryland does not have a parental consent law, but only an ineffective parental notification law that may be waived by the profit-minded abortionist. School health centers in Maryland can refer minor girls to abortion providers, including through school telehealth, without ever notifying parents.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees the religious freedoms of citizens, including rights of conscience of medical providers to refuse to commit abortions in conflict with their deeply held beliefs. However, conscience rights are under attack in Maryland as the legislature forces hospitals and providers to participate in elective abortions and to retain an abortion workforce.

ABORTION DRUGS

Currently, about 67% of recorded abortions are by abortion drugs (“chemical abortion”). Loosened government regulations on their distribution, coupled with telemedicine, has made abortion drugs easier to obtain, more widespread, and harder to track. Not only do a percentage of abortions go unreported, but current reporting fails to gather data on failed chemical abortions, complications, and deaths prompted by these deadly drugs. Since approved for abortion, emergency room visits related to the drugs have increased 500% by women seeking emergency treatment for incomplete abortions, infections, ruptured ectopic pregnancies, or uncontrolled bleeding.

ABORTION COERCION

It has been documented that nearly 3 in 4 women did not willingly choose, but felt pressured into their abortions. With the recent deregulation of abortion drugs, we are witnessing an increasing number of incidents when men have forced women to ingest deadly abortion drugs without their knowledge or consent. MDRTL has proposed the “Women’s Freedom From Coercion Act” to protect women from forced ingestion of abortion drugs.

ABORTION PILL REVERSAL THERAPY

In chemical abortions, abortion drug "mifepristone" kills babies in utero by cutting off their supply of the progesterone hormone. Pro-life obstetricians have developed a therapy that simply replaces progesterone to potentially reverse a chemical abortion if the mother changes her mind. According to Heartbeat International, at least 8,000 babies have been saved due to this Abortion Pill Reversal therapy (APR).

Currently, 14 states have enacted laws giving women information on the possibility of reversing a chemical abortion. But in Colorado, the legislature actually banned Abortion Pill Reversal therapy.

ABORTION FUNDING

According to their 2024-2025 report, Planned Parenthood aborted 434,450 babies that year while their prenatal care services were minimal.  Nevertheless, they received $832.0 million in taxpayer-funded reimbursements and grants.

As early as 1980 the Supreme Court affirmed in Harris v. McRae, that the government may distinguish between abortion and other procedures in funding decisions - noting that there is “no limitation on the authority of a State to make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and to implement that judgment by the allocation of public funds.”

Several states have passed laws that attempt to defund abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood, but Maryland taxpayers are forced to fund even elective abortions and subsidize abortion businesses.

Through the Maryland Abortion Care Access Act of 2022, the Maryland Legislature removed critical safeguards for women seeking abortion, compelled insurance companies to fully fund elective abortions, and forced state taxpayers to pay millions each year in subsidies to the abortion industry to cover abortion workforce training expenses.

Federal Title X allocates federal funds to be distributed to the states for the purpose of supplementing family planning programs. President Donald Trump and legislators in some states have worked to prohibit Title X funds from going to entities like Planned Parenthood that commit elective abortions. But the Maryland legislature requires taxpayers to subsidize these federally disqualified abortion businesses with millions of dollars each year through the Maryland Family Planning Program.

HEALTH INSURANCE

The 2010 federal health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), allows states to opt out of abortion coverage in their state-based insurance “exchanges”. But Maryland is under federal investigation for potential violations of the “Weldon Act” for forcing insurance companies to fully cover elective abortion services in order to participate in the state exchange. 

PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTERS

Nearly 3,000 Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRC's) serve about two million clients annually, saving communities millions of dollars by providing services at little to no cost. Many PRC's provide ultrasounds under a doctor’s oversight as well as parenting classes. Nearly all centers provide assistance such as diapers, cribs, and car seats as well as helping mothers find resources to help with housing or transportation. Despite this there have been recent efforts in some states, including Maryland to restrict the work of PRC's and other pregnancy help organizations. 

ANTI-DISCRIMINATION POLICIES

Several states have passed laws that protect preborn children who have been diagnosed with Down syndrome or any other disability from abortion. Babies diagnosed with disabilities deserve the same rights, opportunities, and privileges as babies without a disability and should never face discrimination. Anti-discrimination laws help protect these babies from eugenic abortions when these abortions are sought due to the disability diagnosis.

Sex-selection abortion is used to prevent the birth of a child of an "undesired" sex: abortion is chosen solely on the basis of the preborn baby's sex. The victims of these abortions are overwhelmingly female.

ETHICAL BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

The right to life of human beings must be respected at every stage of their biological development. Human beings who are in the embryonic or fetal stages of development deserve dignity, and should not be bought and sold or used for harmful or lethal experimentation. This applies equally to human beings whether their lives were begun by in vitro fertilization, human cloning, or by some other laboratory technique. 

Maryland is the epicenter for biomedical research facilities. MDRTL opposes harvesting “stem cells” from living human embryos, who are callously killed in the process. (Note: MDRTL is NOT opposed to research using “stem cells” that are ethically obtained without killing embryos – for example, stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood and from adult tissue.)

MDRTL is opposed to unethical and inhumane biomedical research including some human-relevant testing methods that use tissue or organs from aborted babies - increasing the demand for late-term abortion. The Trump administration has defunded these unethical methods of testing, but the State recently adopted unethical methods, including those using embryonic and fetal tissue derived from aborted babies, as “best practices” and more humane alternatives to testing on “non-human” animals like dogs and cats.  There are ethical testing methods that would not increase the demand for aborted remains that should be prioritized.

EUTHANASIA & HEALTHCARE RATIONING

From its inception, the pro-life movement has been committed to protecting medically vunerable individuals, including people living with disabilities, the elderly and those who are under-insured from euthanasia.

Euthanasia is the administration of a lethal agent by another person, often a doctor, to a patient for the purpose of ending the patient's life.

The legalization of Euthanasia as public policy is often driven by the motivation of hospitals and insurance companies to increase profits by decreasing healthcare costs, not by compassion for patients.

Physician Assisted Suicide, or simply Assisted Suicide, is a form of euthanasia in which a medical provider is licensed to end a patient's life at the patient's request. While the policy is presented as voluntary, legislative safeguards are insufficient to prevent patient coercion by profit-interested insurance companies or heirs.

A right to die can quickly become a duty to die.

Assisted Suicide is a threat to bodily autonomy, not a guarantee of it.

Maryland Right to Life's lobbying efforts have been instrumental in preventing the legalization of Assisted Suicide during 9 state legislative sessions.



INVOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA

In an effort to lower their costs, a significant number of hospitals have implemented formal policies authorizing denial of lifesaving medical treatment against the will of a patient or the patient’s family if an ethics or surrogate committee thinks the patient’s quality of life is poor. Such a bill was introduced in Maryland in 2026 and successfully opposed by MDRTL.

ASSISTED SUICIDE

A number of states have adopted laws licensing doctors and other providers to prescribe lethal drugs to cause their patient’s “suicide”. Assisted Suicide is a precursor to involuntary euthanasia, as so-called “safeguards” are often removed or denied. Data research has shown that safeguards are ineffective, and often fail to protect vulnerable patients. The policy also emboldens insurance companies to cut costs by offering assisted suicide in place of life-sustaining care.