Did Mike Minogue miss an opportunity to punch back at Maura Healey on abortion?

Detailed summary

Mike Minogue didn’t want to talk about abortion. Whenever the Republican gubernatorial candidate was asked about his stance on abortion — a topic of concern in a…

Whenever the Republican gubernatorial candidate was asked about his stance on abortion — a topic of concern in a Democratic-leaning state that has fought growing federal restrictions — he stuck with the same line, some variation of: I’m a compassionate person. As governor, I will uphold the law. But I have my personal beliefs.

Earlier in his campaign, Minogue explicitly stated that he is “pro-life” regarding abortion and all-of-life care, such as his work with life-saving medical devices that helped premature infants. When Governor Maura Healey signed a bill into law removing nearly all restrictions on abortion after 24 weeks, Minogue called it “playing extreme politics with women’s health” and argued that the decision should have been made by citizens rather than politicians.

But I wondered throughout Minogue’s campaign whether he had missed an opportunity to hit Healey harder on her signing the late-term abortion bill into law, which was passed so quickly and with so few restrictions that even a handful of Massachusetts Democrats opposed it. He was in a difficult position as someone who holds personal beliefs about the sanctity of life while trying to win over voters in one of the most progressive states in the country at a time when many women are afraid of losing access to abortion. There’s little modern precedent of electing a Massachusetts governor who opposes abortion.

But Minogue explicitly avoided elaborating on how he’d handle abortion questions if he were elected.

While he said during the final debate that his personal beliefs would not “get in the way” of upholding the law, he declined to specify what that meant in an interview with the Globe. Would he work to overturn the abortion protections through shield laws, I asked, or better support pregnancy resource centers, which Healey has explicitly attacked?

“I will also swear an oath to the Commonwealth when I take over to uphold the law, and I think that that’s the message,” he said.

The antiabortion advocates…

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Boston Globe. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.