BALTIMORE — Long before Monday night’s revelation that five U.S. Supreme Court justices are likely to overturn 50 years of legal precedent in Roe v. Wade, Democratic legislators had begun preparations for Maryland to accept more abortion-seekers from out of state.
As of July 1, a new law will allow nurse practitioners, physician assistants and midwives — not just physicians — to perform abortions in Maryland. The law was vetoed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, but that decision was overridden by the heavily Democratic state legislature.
The idea was to ease access to abortions for Maryland residents, particularly in more rural parts of the state where physicians are fewer in number. As of 2017, more than two-thirds of Maryland counties, which 29% of Maryland women call home, did not have clinics that provided abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights research group.
