Customs change. Laws change. Social conventions change. Our understanding of the world changes. But certain fundamental principles—morality, human decency, dignity, and reverence for life—should not be so easily rewritten to accommodate prevailing political or ideological attitudes.

What I’m referring to is Massachusetts H.5595, a bill that was signed into law last Monday—a law that eliminated the state’s previous restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks. But before going further, let me be very clear: this post isn’t about that legislation or even abortion; rather, it’s about the reaction to the signing of the bill.

~ Background ~

Under the old law, an abortion after 24 weeks had to be justified by specific circumstances involving the mother’s life or physical or mental health, or a lethal or grave fetal diagnosis. H.5595 removed those specific requirements and replaced them with the words “in the professional judgment of the physician,” with no subsequent gestational-age cutoff.

In practical terms, an abortion after 24 weeks no longer has to meet one of the specific medical or fetal conditions previously required by Massachusetts law; the physician’s professional judgment is now the standard, which is certainly the prerogative of the voters.

But as noted, this post isn’t about the new law. It’s about something I think we all should find disturbing — in the news clip of the bill’s signing ceremony we saw a dozen or so smiling, enthusiastic supporters surrounding the governor who then actually burst into applause as she signed the bill into law. They were as gleeful as high school cheerleaders at a homecoming game.

Let that sink in for a moment while we put aside the usual abortion arguments. This matter wasn’t about a six-week embryo; nor was it about trying to resolve the age-old question of when human life legally begins. This is about the third trimester, when babies are routinely born in the seventh and eighth months of pregnancy and survive.

An NIH-funded study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 94% of babies born at 28 weeks—roughly the beginning of the third trimester—survived. So, again, to be clear, this post is not about abortion; it’s about the reaction of the women in attendance.

No question, there are extraordinarily rare circumstances in which a mother’s life or health is imperiled late in pregnancy, and an agonizing decision may have to be made. In fact, Governor Healey herself acknowledged the gravity of such circumstances earlier, saying that the stories behind them were filled with “pain and anguish and heartache.”

On that point, I could not agree more. But words are one thing and actions are quite another. Google the news clip and watch for yourself—the expressions on the governor’s face and the legislation’s supporters were hardly ones of somberness.

So, for just a moment let’s consider the most compelling argument for allowing physician discretion late in a pregnancy. Imagine a woman who is 37 weeks pregnant. Her baby weighs six pounds and could survive perfectly well outside the womb. Then something goes catastrophically wrong, and her doctors are confronted with a life-and-death choice.

If doctors can save both mother and child, wonderful. If circumstances somehow make that impossible and the physician chooses a course of treatment that results in the baby’s death in order to save the mother, then that’s what needs to be done.

However, what I cannot wrap my head around is celebrating the matter. The ceremony’s aftermath had the festive, congratulatory atmosphere of a political victory rather than the solemnity one might expect when discussing circumstances that ultimately involve the ending of a human life. There was something deeply disturbing about watching a room full of women not simply applauding the signing but apparently exulting over it.

Debate abortion laws. Debate viability. Debate the mother’s rights, the baby’s rights, and where government belongs in that extraordinarily difficult relationship. But one would think that in a civilized society, the supporters would have stopped to consider the true solemnity of the moment.

If these situations truly involve pain, anguish and heartache, and surely, they do, then perhaps soberness and compassion would have been a more appropriate reaction than applause.

There are things a civilized society may reluctantly decide are necessary. There are things a civilized society may decide must remain legal. And then there are things a civilized society should never celebrate—and a law allowing for the death of a viable human life ought to be one of them.