Maura Healey

A trailblazing leader for LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights

Gov. Maura Healey is a civil rights lawyer and proven leader with an outstanding record of public service. Gov. Healey grew up in New Hampshire, the oldest of five and raised by a strong mom who was a school nurse. She graduated from Harvard College, where she captained the basketball team, and played professional basketball in Europe. She later attended Northeastern University School of Law, and has spent the last 15 years of her career working for the people of Massachusetts. She has served as chief of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division, where she led the country’s first successful state challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, changing the landscape for LGBTQ+ rights across the country. She also spearheaded efforts in Massachusetts to protect abortion clinic staff and patients, including investigating fake health clinics, defending the Massachusetts buffer zone law, helping providers secure confidential license plates, and seeking injunctions against individuals that threatened clinic staff.

A champion for justice and equality

In 2015, Gov. Healey was sworn in as Massachusetts attorney general, becoming the first openly LGBTQ+ attorney general in the United States. As attorney general, she challenged unconstitutional abortion restrictions across the country and took on the Trump administration for its attacks on birth control access, Title X, and abortion via telehealth. She was an early and strong supporter of the ACCESS Act, which expanded access to contraception, and the ROE Act, which removed several anti-abortion restrictions from Massachusetts law in 2020. While she was co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, it became the first and only Democratic campaign committee to require candidates to publicly state their support for abortion rights in order to receive endorsements. She implemented an extensive paid parental leave policy and created some of the strongest equal pay regulations in the country. Throughout her career, she has been a staunch advocate of gender equality, racial justice, and civil and reproductive rights.

An historic victory 

Gov. Healey won the Massachusetts gubernatorial election, flipping the seat from red to blue. No state had ever elected an openly lesbian governor, and Healey made history as one of the first. Massachusetts had also never elected a woman as governor prior to Healey’s victory. Healey has been called “the people’s lawyer,” because she never backs down from a tough fight, whether fighting for civil rights, reproductive freedom and beyond. At a time when access to safe, legal abortion is under threat across the country, it is more important than ever to elect champions of reproductive freedom. Healey has pledged to ensure that Massachusetts remains a safe haven for abortion access. We know that she will tenaciously fight for the people of Massachusetts in office.