I was very pleased to vote for this bill, which responds to emerging threats to health care privacy. I appreciate the hard work and thought leadership of Senator Cindy Friedman, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and Senate President Karen Spilka. I’m sharing excerpts from the Senate’s Press Release below.
Legislation Summary
On Thursday, June 27, the Massachusetts Senate passed the An Act strengthening health care protections in the Commonwealth—otherwise known as the Shield Act 2.0—legislation that would fortify protections for those seeking and providing reproductive and transgender care.
The bill, S.2538, which was approved by a vote of 37-3, adds a layer of protection for patients and providers at a time when attacks on reproductive and transgender rights are escalating on multiple fronts, including executive orders from the Trump Administration, federal funding freezes for care providers, a Supreme Court decision ruling against transgender care, and other states bringing lawsuits against physicians providing reproductive health care.
Boosting protections that were first passed by the Legislature in 2022 as part of a Shield Act, the legislation prohibits state agencies and law enforcement from cooperating with other states or federal investigations into legally-protected reproductive or transgender health care provided in Massachusetts. Businesses that manage electronic health information would similarly be limited in sharing patient data connected to these services.
It makes practical updates to protect providers, including allowing prescriptions to be issued with the name of a healthcare practice rather than an individual practitioner, excluding certain reproductive and gender-affirming medications from the state’s drug monitoring programs, and limiting third-party access to related medical records.
Additionally, the legislation:
- Enhances license protections for anyone providing or assisting in the provision of reproductive or transgender health care services.
- Protects attorneys licensed in Massachusetts from removal or discipline for advising or representing clients on the topics of reproductive or transgender health care services.
- Forbids insurance companies from discriminating against or penalizing providers who offer reproductive and transgender health services.
- Prohibits courts from admitting or considering cases of abuse, neglect, or maltreatment brought against parents because they support their child in seeking reproductive or transgender care.
The legislation mandates that acute-care hospitals provide emergency services—including abortion care when necessary—to any patient who is injured or seeking emergency treatment. The measure comes in response to the Trump Administration’s rollback of Biden-era requirements that required hospitals to deliver abortion care in cases of emergency.
The legislation, a part of the Massachusetts Senate’s Response 2025 initiative to protect the Commonwealth from federal threats, was reported out of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary on June 16, 2025, and then reported out of the Committee on Ways and Means on June 18, 2025. Votes of each committee are available on the Legislature’s website, along with a full summary of the bill and a recording of the Senate’s livestreamed debate on amendments.
Having passed the Senate, the bill has been sent to the House of Representatives for their consideration.
Legislative Statements of Support
“This bill makes it clear that the Massachusetts Senate will not back down when it comes to protecting our residents and defending our values,” stated Senate President Karen E. Spilka (D-Ashland). “Our residents—indeed all Americans—deserve the right to make their own health care decisions in consultation with their providers. In Massachusetts, we do not discriminate based on the type of care you seek, and this bill strengthens protections for transgender people and those who have the ability to get pregnant. I applaud Senator Cindy Friedman and the Senate Committee on Steering and Policy for coalescing around this bill at this crucial time as part of the Senate’s Response 2025 initiative. I’d also like to thank Senate Judiciary Chair Edwards, Senate Ways and Means Chair Rodrigues, and my Senate colleagues, as well as the stakeholders, advocates and members of the public who helped to craft this important legislation.”
“As we face new, more unpredictable threats from a hostile federal government that is targeting those engaged in care that is legally protected under Massachusetts law, we must again stand up to defend our autonomy and the rights of Massachusetts residents,” said Senator Cindy F. Friedman (D-Arlington), Chair of the Senate Committee on Steering and Policy. “The passage of the Shield Act 2.0 upholds the Senate’s commitment to always keep the health and safety of Massachusetts residents at the forefront of our work. I want to thank Attorney General Campbell and the many advocates for their collaboration in crafting this bill, Senator Edwards and Chair Rodrigues for their attention to this matter and helping move the bill to the Senate floor, and Senate President Spilka for her commitment through the Response 2025 to respond to the unpredictable and often deplorable actions of the Trump Administration.”
“At a time when access to essential health care is under attack across the country, Massachusetts is making a clear commitment to protect the rights, safety, and privacy of our residents,” said Senator Lydia Edwards (D-East Boston), Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. “This legislation ensures that patients and providers are shielded from political interference and unlawful, out-of-state overreach. We want our communities to know that in Massachusetts, your health care decisions remain between you and your doctor.”
Organizational Statements of support
“Access to reproductive care and health care for transgender people are under increasing threat from both the federal administration and hostile state governments,” said Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. “Massachusetts has made it clear that health care policy should be driven by science and by people’s need for care, not politics. The Legislature worked hard in 2022 to protect against these threats, and we appreciate the ongoing, collaborative work to address and anticipate expanding threats in 2025. We’re grateful to Senate President Spilka, Senator Rodrigues, Senator Friedman, and Senator Edwards for advancing these important updates to our shield law that will increase protections for providers and patients and extend the Commonwealth’s commitment to health care access.”
“With today’s vote, Massachusetts is reinforcing its legacy of safeguarding abortion care despite ever-evolving and escalating efforts from a hostile federal administration to empower anti-abortion extremists and undermine access to reproductive health care and our fundamental right to bodily autonomy nationwide,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, President of Reproductive Equity Now. “With the passage of S.2538, the Massachusetts State Senate has voted to further strengthen our best-in-the-nation shield protections for providers and patients in the Commonwealth. We are grateful for the leadership of Senate President Spilka, Senator Friedman, Attorney General Campbell, and all of our legislative champions in the Senate, and look forward to working with our champions in the House to continue to advance this critical legislation.”
“This bill is an important step to further safeguard patients’ and providers’ safety in seeking and delivering protected health care. No one should feel like they have to choose between their health or safety,” said Dominique Lee, President & CEO of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. “This bill strengthens the protective legal framework that defends patient confidentiality and supports the delivery of evidence-based abortion care and gender-affirming care, including to patients from states with hostile anti-abortion and anti-trans policies.”
“Abortion and gender-affirming care providers and patients are under escalating attacks, facing lawsuits, harassment, and intimidation by hostile states around the country,” said Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Massachusetts has long recognized that access to these forms of health care is essential – for our health, our families, and our bodily autonomy. This legislation builds on our state’s already-strong shield law protections in a time of tremendous urgency.”
I believe the recent Supreme Court ruling allows Tennessee to ban cross sex hormones and surgical procedures on minors? Will, can you confirm you believe a child of say 13 years old has the mental capacity to surgical remove their breasts or penis?
This.
?
Yes Will, I would also like to know where you stand on this issue of minors receiving hormones and/or surgery to alter their gender.
Mayor Wu has announced she supports it.
And an MD at Children’s hospital in Boston earned 11 million on performing treatments last year.
Studies have shown that our brains are not fully formed until our mid-20’s,at the earliest.
Sweden and other countries have already abandoned this kind of “care”, because too many young people on the receiving end of it became suicidal by age 30.
Yes, I’d also like to know where you stand
To my knowledge, this never happens — minors use hormone therapy, not irreversible surgery.
But I trust health professionals in Massachusetts to care appropriately for their patients, including supporting an appropriate decision-making process.
Hormone therapy will result in irreversible body modifications in the developing person. I trust many doctors know the difference between true cases of medical need and social engineering.
I think you know what’s going on. Very disturbing take.
Eppur si mouve.
What protection does the bill provide for minors?
Thank you, Senator Brownsberger, for your efforts to ensure that our community members who seek and provide health care are protected.
Boston Children’s Hospital deals with the issues of trans gender care and reproductive anomalies with experience, support, and care. Knowledge is not a dangerous thing when it comes to the rights and responsible health care and support for all. How lucky we are to have safe life affirming care for this in Massachusetts thanks to the legislators.
Yes! We need continuing legislation like this to protect transgender people and women. Thank you, Will.
It’s great to hear patients and providers will have solid privacy protections and rights to make their personal health decisions in MA, independent of federal government. It’s been concerning to hear stories from other states where doctors were hesitant to provide health care for women.
Thank you!
Thanks for your efforts, Will.
Does this include pharmacies and pharmacists? “Businesses that manage electronic health information would similarly be limited in sharing patient data connected to these services.”
Will this bill protect criminals from discovery?
I am all for privacy, but behind the most offensive words and motives from some on the right are age old conservative ideas.
99% of Republicans are not racist, xenophobic, anti-trans, &c., &c… and yet the Democratic Party can offer nothing but hysterics and name calling.
The vast, vast majority of people aren’y anti-Trans, they’re free thinking and anti-dogma and pro free speech.
Is this bill necessary, or performative?
“Deplorables”
“MAGATS” (MAGA maggots)
There’s that word again.
“…deplorable actions of the Trump Administration.” – Sen. Friedman
P.s., As a Massachusetts voter I am highly skeptical of this business being at all a matter of altruism. The geriatric Democratic Party bosses and proto-oligarchs thought they could put their feet up and rake it in by making space under the tent for the Socialist Progressives, but the Progressives have no fealty to democracy or American values, and now pffft, the Democratic Party is no more. The Democratic Party thought it could co-opt the Progressives’ twin fires, one of antisemitism driving BDS ethnic cleansing and its attendant genocidal intifada of a Free Palestinian, born in and true to a liberation by pushing Jews into the sea, and one an almost unassailable, subjective and un-falsifiable issue of trans identity rights that don’t stop at the acceptance that largely exists already in our free society, but avariciously and potently requires surrendering free speech and objective reality. These ironically twinned flags don’t represent liberation, they represent coercion.
The course of recent human events has demonstrated the Progressives are dependent on illiberal measures to achieve their aims.
I have voted exclusively Democrat for the 34 years I’ve been a voter, but voting Democrat now no longer means voting to perpetuate an exceptional form of self government. And, since the post 9/11 just and necessary wars of reprisal against radical Islam the fortunes and mobility of our citizenry has been a diluent in blue states and cities to the extent that extraordinary and often un-Constitutional measures have been employed to jealously unethically preserve political majorities.