People holding signs related to abortion legislation stand in the House of Representatives hallway as lawmakers prepare to resume voting on Thursday at the Maine State House in Augusta. Ashley Allen/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — The Maine Senate adjourned late Friday night without voting on Gov. Janet Mills’ groundbreaking proposal to expand abortion access in Maine after the leaders of both parties decided that such a high-profile bill deserved to be debated out in the open, during daylight hours.

“The Senate did not take up L.D. 1619 tonight,” Christine Kirby, a spokesman for Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, said in a written statement Friday night. “Instead, President Jackson and Senate Democrats will proudly pass L.D. 1619 when the Senate reconvenes during daylight hours.”

Jackson committed Republicans not to run the bill “under the cover of darkness” or after 6 p.m., Kirby said. The Senate didn’t get the bill from the House, which had held the bill over after a late-night 74-72 vote, until around 8 p.m., about half an hour after the House adjourned.

Jackson offered Senate Republicans a choice to debate the bill Friday or to wait until the Senate returns, probably in the middle of next week, Kirby said. Senate Republicans, who had admitted they didn’t have a chance of stopping the bill in their chamber, chose to wait until next week.

“When the Senate reconvenes, our caucus will make it clear where our members stand when it comes to keeping politicians out of these deeply personal medical decisions,” Kirby concluded. “And in the case of this bill, heartbreaking situations.”

The Senate had appeared poised to advance the proposal along a party-line vote and move the state one step closer to adopting one of the most progressive abortion laws in the country. Instead, one hour later, the Senate adjourned without Jackson telling the small cluster of onlookers why.

He simply announced the Senate would probably not return to work until sometime midweek.

The bill would allow licensed doctors to approve abortions after a fetus becomes viable outside the womb, or at about 24 weeks. Opponents worry the measure will open the door to abortions on demand through birth. Supporters say it is a medical decision best left to a woman and her medical provider.

Maine’s existing abortion law allows for post-viability abortions if the mother’s life or health is at risk.

Democrats have a much stronger grip on the Senate than they do the House, enjoying a larger majority than their House peers. Perhaps most importantly, unlike in the House, all of those Senate Democrats campaigned for their offices as defenders of abortion access in Maine.

On Friday morning, even Senate Republicans acknowledged the party’s best shot at defeating Mills’ bill was in the House, not in their chamber. They were holding out hope that House Republicans could find a way to stop the bill before that chamber takes up the bill once more in a final enactment vote.

“The real action on this bill was always going to be in the House,” said Mike McClellan, a policy director for the Christian Civic League of Maine. “I mean, we’re here today for the Senate vote, we’ll fight it here, too, of course, but it was always going to be about the House. Everybody knows that.”

The bill entered the chamber with 20 of the Senate’s 35 members already signed on as co-sponsors. Democrats could lose two co-sponsor votes and still advance the bill, but none of the initial co-sponsors have hinted that they have any doubts about the underlying bill.

The opposite happened during the House’s abortion bill drama that played out 24 hours earlier.

The House voted to accept the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation to pass L.D. 1619, Mills’ bill to expand access to post-viability abortions, in a 74-72 late Thursday night. That vote followed a 4 ½-hour recess as Democrats scrambled to corral the necessary votes, some from as far away as Deer Isle.

The governor’s proposal started with 76 of the 151 House members as a sponsor or co-sponsor, signaling that it had already shored up enough support to squeak by with a one-vote margin before House leaders even began to whip the bill.

But some House sponsors did not hold fast. Rep. Walter Riseman, I-Harrison, ended up voting no. Others, like Rep. Chris Kessler, D-South Portland, were not present at the time of the vote. That forced Democrats to flip a co-sponsor holdout, Rep. Ron Russell, D-Verona Island.

Shortly before 10 p.m., the Christian Civic League urged members who lived in Russell’s district to email him and ask him to oppose the bill. “He is receiving tremendous pressure,” the alert read. “Tell him you are from his district and you want him to protect viable, unborn babies.”

DELAY RAISES IRE IN HOUSE

After an hour of tearful debate, House Democrats announced they would be taking a half-hour break that would eventually turn into a 4 ½-hour hunt for more votes. They asked Rep. Holly Eaton, D-Deer Isle, to make the two-hour drive from Deer Isle with two children in tow to advance the bill.

Republicans objected to the long delay, with some later calling it disrespectful and deceitful, but used the break to grow opponents’ ranks, too. A member with a medical excuse, Rep. Michel Lajoie, D-Lewiston, hobbled into the House determined to cast his vote against the bill despite a broken leg.

In the end, it was a tried-and-true progressive Democrat, Rep. Ben Collings, D-Portland, who played the most outsized role in the House drama. He proposed an amendment to limit the scope of Mills’ bill that gave Republicans hope and threw a wrench in Democrats’ plans.

Collings tried to amend the bill after voting in favor of it during the initial House vote, but Democrats shot him down. Republicans had been expecting his amendment, but bill opponents got angry at him after he voted in favor of the underlying bill, giving it just enough votes to pass.

The first House vote – whether or not to accept the Judiciary Committee’s ought-to-pass report – was the closest, at 74-72, after Talbot Ross held the vote open for more than a half hour. If either Collings or Russell had voted against the bill, the vote would have failed in a tie.

That is when Republican House leaders began using every parliamentary tool they could think of to try to stop the House from officially engrossing the bill, which is the technical term for the first of two votes each chamber needs to take before a bill can head to the governor.

They eventually wore out even their members, a few of whom protested in floor speeches while others began to leave for the night before the official engrossment vote even occurred. By the final vote, the GOP’s margin of defeat had grown to 13 votes.

The last parliamentary dust-up occurred when House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, tried to put a hold on the bill. A member can hold the vote for up to a day, giving the GOP time to make another play.

But Talbot Ross told Faulkingham that another member had beat him to the hold, although she wouldn’t say who because that was confidential. The hold of that member, Rep. Matt Moonen, D-Portland, did not expire until the House adjourned its business at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

AMENDMENT PROPOSALS EXPECTED

When the Senate reconvenes, Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, plans to propose two amendments to the bill.

One would have carved out another exemption to the state’s ban on post-viability abortions.

Currently, state law limits abortions after 24 weeks, when it is generally accepted a fetus can live outside the womb, to when a mother’s health or life is at risk. Brakey’s amendment would permit later abortions for fetal anomalies likely to cause death within 30 days of birth if confirmed by two physicians.

Brakey’s amendment does not mention rape or incest.

Supporters had previously resisted efforts to narrow the scope of the bill to apply to cases of lethal fetal anomalies or rape or incest because they said legislation can never account for every pregnancy crisis or keep up with rapidly evolving fields of medicine.

Brakey also planned to introduce a second amendment to ban the sale or transfer of aborted fetal tissue to any for-profit or nonprofit entity. He thinks Maine should ban the practice for now until it can decide if it should regulate it. This section would be repealed in 2027.

If the original bill is adopted, Maine would have one of the most progressive abortion laws in the country. If the amendment is added, Maine would be one of 19 states to legalize later-in-pregnancy abortions if a fetus is diagnosed with a fatal anomaly or in the case of rape or incest.

The bill is one of the highest-profile measures heard by lawmakers this year. Earlier this week, the Legislature sent other bills to Mills to waive abortion insurance co-payments, ban local preemption of state abortion laws and protect providers treating patients from states with abortion bans.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the original bill puts Maine in the same group as Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. Eight additional states allow post-viability abortions if conducted for lethal fetal anomalies.

Two other states allow post-viability abortions in cases of rape or incest if a police report is filed. The amendment proposed by Collings doesn’t require a police report to verify that rape or incest occurred before a doctor can approve a post-viability abortion.

The number of people seeking abortions in Maine after the first trimester is small. In 2021, the most recent year data is available, 94% of the 1,905 abortions conducted in Maine were done within the first trimester of pregnancy, or up to 14 weeks. The remaining 107 occurred before 20 weeks.

Abortion-rights advocates note the chilling effect of Maine’s existing viability restrictions. The state law allows abortions for any reason through about 24 weeks, but doctors won’t do them after 20 weeks out of fear that imprecise gestational dating could lead to prosecution.

The number of women seeking post-viability abortions is very small – roughly 12 a year in Maine, according to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England – but research out of the University of California San Francisco shows that fetal anomaly is not the only reason women seek them.

According to a 2019 study out of the University of California San Francisco, the small group of abortions that take place after the first trimester happen because people get new information they didn’t have before or because of social, economic, and logistical barriers to abortion care.

The research shows women seek later-in-pregnancy abortions when they learn of a fetal or maternal health issue, the loss of a job or spouse, and when they live in a state where abortion is illegal and must come up with the money and time off to travel to a state where abortion is legal.