Maine set to join other Democratic-led states in enacting shield law for health care providers

Both chambers of the Maine Legislature have now approved a “shield law” designed to protect the state’s health professionals who provide reproductive and gender-affirming care from being targeted by other states’ bans of those treatments. 

Both votes fell largely along party lines, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. On Thursday, the Senate passed the bill 21-13 after the House on Wednesday passed it 80-70. The bill now returns to both chambers for final enactment votes. 

The measure, LD 227, sponsored by Anne Perry (D-Calais), comes as many Republican-led states have sought to curb access to reproductive care following the overturning of federal abortion rights in 2022. 

Abortion is now banned in 15 states — after Arizona revived an 1864 ban this week — and a handful of other states have passed restrictions to the procedure earlier in pregnancy than the standard established under Roe v. Wade. Gender-affirming care has also come under attack, with 22 states passing laws or policies banning this care despite it being supported by every major medical association. 

So far, 22 states and Washington, D.C., have passed shield laws protecting abortion, with eleven of those states and D.C. also protecting gender-affirming care. LD 227 falls in line with the latter, protecting from litigation health care practitioners who provide gender-affirming and reproductive health care services that are legal in Maine.

LD 227 spurred one of the lengthiest floor debates so far this session, with hours of debate in the House Wednesday night, largely about what the shield law would and would not allow. 

Conservative lawmakers and groups circulated claims that the bill would facilitate kidnapping and trafficking, which have been dismissed by legal authorities, including Attorney General Aaron Frey. Frey told Maine Morning Star that the bill makes “no changes to criminal law, nor does it legalize any currently illegal behavior.”

“There is no reading of the bill that would authorize criminal acts, like kidnapping or trafficking,” Frey stated. 

Concerns about kidnapping and trafficking continued during debate of the bill on the Senate floor Thursday.

Sen. Stacey Guerin (R-Penobscot) asked if the bill would background check people bringing children to Maine to receive gender-affirming care, which Sen. Anne Carney (D-Cumberland) pushed back on as irrelevant to LD 227, which does not change Maine’s criminal laws.   

“This bill is not really about children,” Carney said. “It’s about protecting health care providers.”

Lawmakers supportive of the measure also commonly described it as a means to prevent other states from imposing their laws on Maine citizens. 

“What this bill does is it protects the sovereignty of our state,” said Sen. Mark Lawrence (D-York). 

The bill drew hours of testimony, largely in opposition, when it was first heard in committee, which Sen. Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln) said on the Senate floor Thursday was understandable because of misinformation circulating. She would be opposed to the bill if it allowed trafficking and kidnapping, Reny explained, and she said LD 227 has underscored for her the responsibility lawmakers hold to speak about bills with accuracy.

Following the Senate vote, Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund, a group supporting the measure, called the passage of the bill a vote to protect Mainers.  

“Today’s vote made clear that a majority of our elected leaders in the Maine State Senate will focus on the facts and act with compassion and urgency to meet our current moment with policy that is necessary and appropriate,” said the group’s vice president Lisa Margulies.

Some of the incorrect claims about what LD 227 would do can be traced back to similar points of opposition to a different proposal for a shield law. The Judiciary Committee unanimously voted down that proposal in January, which included provisions about custody and was ultimately deemed overly complex. 

Perry submitted the text for LD 227, previously a concept draft, a month later and less than a week before its public hearing. While not unique to this bill, lawmakers have criticized the late introduction and lack of publicly-available text, including Sen. Lisa Keim on the Senate floor Thursday. 

As passed by the Legislature, LD 227 would shield providers from civil actions, foreign judgements and forced testimony, as well as prevent law enforcement from sharing information in out-of-state investigations regarding health care activities that are legally protected in Maine — the latter of which law enforcement argued would hinder inter-agency collaboration. 

Before the Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee reported out the bill with a divided but favorable vote, it amended the proposal in response to concerns from law enforcement and claims about permitting kidnapping and trafficking.  

As amended, the legal protections offered in the bill apply to health care professionals and those who assist them, rather than any person. The amended bill does prevent police from knowingly providing information for an interstate investigation into legally-protected health activity or arresting someone in relation to such treatment. However, it provides some exceptions to these rules, including: if federal law requires action, if police have a good faith belief a warrant is valid in Maine, or if there isn’t enough time to comply with the provisions of LD 227 and there is a compelling need for action because of an imminent danger to public safety. 

In both chambers, Republican legislators also denounced gender-affirming care in general, which is already legal in Maine and not altered by the shield law. 

As Maine Morning Star previously reported, parental consent is needed in most cases for minors to obtain gender-affirming care. A law in Maine passed last session allows for people who are at least 16 years old to receive non-surgical gender-affirming hormone therapy — not gender reassignment surgery — without a parent’s consent, but only under a set of specific circumstances.   

Some of the comments made about LD 227 also led to the House censuring two of its members. 

On the House floor Wednesday night, Rep. Michael Lemelin (R-Chelsea) implied that the Legislature’s enactment of a bill last year to protect access to abortion later in pregnancy caused the Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston by invoking God’s wrath. If lawmakers pass LD 227, Lemelin said there will be “severe consequences.” 

Rep. Shelley Rudnicki (R-Fairfield) rose to “say that I agree with Rep. Lemelin and everything he said.”

Lemelin’s comments were castigated by members of both parties. The vote to censure the lawmakers received unanimous consent and no debate. Following the censure, Lemelin and Rudnicki issued nearly identical apologies on the House floor.