Executive Order  No. 601: Rescinding Executive Order No. 600

WHEREAS, the Constitution of the Commonwealth provides a guarantee of reproductive rights that is entirely independent of any protection offered or implicit in the Constitution of the United States, and the General Laws have long ensured that access to reproductive health care services remains readily available in the Commonwealth;

WHEREAS, on June 24, 2022 the United States Supreme Court issued a decision that reversed 50 years of settled law to declare that the Constitution of the United States provides no protection of any sort for a woman’s right to choose an abortion;

WHEREAS, in the absence of a Federal constitutional protection for this right, other States are considering and some have adopted laws that drastically limit or prohibit access to reproductive health services and that in some cases purport to impose civil or criminal liability or professional sanctions on health care professionals who may provide and persons who may seek or obtain reproductive health care services from providers in the Commonwealth;

WHEREAS, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision, on June 24, 2022, I issued Executive Order 600, which took certain measures to protect providers of reproductive health care services and persons accessing such services from legal liability premised on and professional sanctions issued under the laws of other States when those services are lawful in the Commonwealth and meet Commonwealth standards for good professional practice;

WHEREAS, in order to address these same concerns, the Legislature then passed Chapter 127 of the Acts of 2022: An Act Expanding Protections for Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care, which codifies in law the measures included in Executive Order 600 and, making use of the more expansive authority of the legislative process, includes additional measures to protect providers of and persons seeking access to reproductive health care services that are lawful in the Commonwealth;

WHEREAS, the law enacted by the Legislature incorporates and expands upon the protections of Executive Order No. 600, and maintaining overlapping protections in both an Executive Order and statutory law is unnecessary and may lead to confusion and inconvenience for the persons that these measures intend to protect;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Charles D. Baker, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution, Part 2, c. 2, § 1, Art. 1, do hereby order as follows:

Executive Order No. 600 is rescinded effective immediately.

Given at the Executive Chamber in Boston this 24th day of August in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two and of the Independence of the United States of America two hundred forty-six.