Yarmouth woman cited as inspiration for Gov. Mills abortion bill
By James Corrigan
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MAINE (WMTW) — Governor Janet Mills and Democratic leaders of the state legislature proposed an expansion in abortion access in Maine beyond 24 weeks with the consent of a licensed medical professional.
Mills cited the story of Dana Peirce, a mother of two children from Yarmouth, who traveled to Colorado in 2019 to obtain an abortion during her 32nd week of pregnancy after her fetus developed a genetic mutation and became nonviable.
Peirce was profiled by Maine’s Total Coverage in November as part of a WMTW Your Choice, Your Voice series story about abortion rights.
Peirce said that she had initially been unaware that she could not receive an abortion in Maine despite the fact that her fetus would be unable to survive on its own.
“If I couldn’t have afforded an abortion and to travel and to pay for it, I would have had to wait until they would allow me to have a C-section and then they would have immediately taken him,” Peirce said. “If I were lucky, I would have been able to hold him until he died.”
Peirce previously had two children and had already named her unborn child Cameron.
“I just felt so much relief that he was no longer suffering,” Peirce said, referring to what she felt after her abortion. “His ribcage didn’t expand, and so his heart was filling that whole space, and so he wouldn’t been able to breathe, and he would have suffocated, and I was not willing to let that happen.”
Peirce says having to travel for her abortion made the experience worse.
“I just wish that my providers just could have taken care of me here in Maine because it was bad enough, and it just got so much worse,” Peirce said.
Governor Mills’ bill is opposed by Republican leaders who call it extreme.
“This runs counter to wide support for current Maine law that restricts abortions after fetal viability,” a statement by state House Republicans read. “Despite statements suggesting Republicans would seek to change Maine’s abortion law, it is now Governor Mills who is looking to make Maine’s the most extreme in the country.”
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