HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (LifeSiteNews) – No less than seven pro-abortion measures have advanced in the Pennsylvania General Assembly over the past week and, if successful, would make abortion-on-demand effectively untouchable and largely unregulated in the state.
Live Action reported that the House Judiciary Committee approved seven bills, each on a 14-12 party-line vote, and each pertaining to abortion.
The first, a so-called “Reproductive Rights Amendment,” would put to the voters a proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution asserting a “fundamental right to exercise personal reproductive liberty,” including the “ability to choose or refuse to prevent, continue or end the individual’s pregnancy, the right to choose or refuse contraceptives and the right to choose or refuse fertility care, all without discrimination on the basis of race, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or relationship status.” The scope of the language is broad enough not just to shield abortion at any point in pregnancy but also invalidate age or parental involvement requirements as well as create a “right” to sterilization or gender “transition” procedures.
The next four bills would all place numerous prohibitions on both police and courts’ ability to obtain or share records pertaining to abortionists who violate other states’ pro-life laws or cooperate with their counterparts from other states in such investigations, effectively giving the abortion industry free reign to operate without scrutiny and turning Pennsylvania into a destination for out-of-state abortion seekers.
A fifth proposal would create a state-level equivalent to the controversial Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which has been selectively used at the federal level to quash and punish peaceful prayer, protest, and sidewalk counseling outside of abortion facilities. The final piece of legislation would eliminate Pennsylvania’s mandatory 24-hour waiting period for abortion.
Current Pennsylvania law permits abortion up to 24 weeks into pregnancy, with exceptions for so-called threats to the life of the mother up until birth. But Pennsylvania Family Council policy analyst Lexi Sneller warns that “these laws would make Pennsylvania one of the most extreme abortion states in the country overnight.”
Pennsylvania’s legislature is split between a Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate, giving pro-lifers a chance to defeat the bills even if they clear the full House.
Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby continues to work feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions.
