Taylor St. Germain, communications director of Reproductive Equity Now, an organization that aims to provide equitable reproductive healthcare access for all people in New England, said she thinks voters will “rise up” and go to the polls “in droves to support abortion access” this November. 

“Reproductive freedom is on the line in every single election up and down the ballot in every state across the country,” St. Germain said. 

Warren also said that there is a possibility that if Donald Trump becomes president he could begin enforcing an 1873 anti-vice law that bans the mailing of equipment that could be used to administer an abortion. The Comstock Act has not been applied in the last 50 years but any president could theoretically enforce it, Warren said. 

The law would have a significant impact on Massachusetts, Rose said, because it would prevent providers from mailing out abortion medications to their out-of-state patients, make it difficult for pharmaceutical companies to mail abortion medication to the state, and prohibit the delivery of healthcare equipment required by abortion providers.

“It is a zombie law from 1873 that should frankly stay dead,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, the head of Reproductive Equity Now. “It is shameful that the Republicans are trying to resurrect it. It really goes to show you that they will use any means necessary to ban abortions if [Trump] does that.” 

Testimony also pointed to a big increase in out-of-state patients seeking care in Massachusetts, leading to longer waits.

"Our clinics are contending with more patients," Holder said. "More appointments are funds paying for more care."

Rebecca Hart Holder, the president of the advocacy group Reproductive Equity Now, cast the current debate in even more binary terms, warning that attacks on abortion access have opened the door to attacks on marriage rights, gender equity, and other privacy-related protections Americans take for granted.

“If you look at a Venn Diagram of the antiabortion movement and the anti-gender equity movement, it is a circle,” she said.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell, ACLU of Massachusetts Executive Director Carol Rose, Reproductive Equity Now President Rebecca Hart Holder, Brigham and Women's Hospital physician Dr. Kathryn Fay, and U.S. Sen. Edward Markey are expected to participate as the Economic Policy Subcommittee that Warren chairs convenes a hearing titled "The Economic and Health Impacts of Threats to Reproductive Rights."

“I think it’s hugely significant that these bills have made it to Ways and Means. It’s definitely some recognition from the Legislature, I think, of really a critical juncture we’re facing,” said Claire Teylouni, director of governmental affairs at Reproductive Equity Now, as she invoked the worsening maternal health crisis and a growing volume of home births.