In a 3-2 decision Monday, the state Supreme Court sent a case regarding whether Medicaid should pay for abortions back to a lower court.
In a 219-page opinion, Justice Christine Donohue ordered that the Commonwealth Court, which previously dismissed it, should hear the case, Allegheny County Reproductive Health Center v. PA Department of Human Services, brought by abortion providers. The case challenges a law that prevents Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program from paying for abortions. However, Medicaid does pay for full-term pregnancy care.
Donohue and Justice David Wecht held that the state’s Equal Rights Amendment protects the right to an abortion. Justice Kevin Dougherty agreed. Justices Kevin Brobson and Daniel McCaffery were not involved in the case.
However, two justices dissented, Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy and Chief Justice Debra Todd.
House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia/Delaware) said, “Today’s Supreme Court ruling is an important step in reaffirming Pennsylvania’s commitment to personal freedom, including reproductive freedom. With other states chipping away at women’s rights, this is a good decision for all Pennsylvanians, but especially for women, who should have the right to make decisions about their own body, including reproductive decisions.”
However, House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster) said the Supreme Court had overstepped its authority.
“Pennsylvania law already allows public funds to be used to pay for abortions in case of incest, rape or to protect the life of the mother. This decision, supported by only part of the seven-member court, eviscerates the past, well-established precedent of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and opens the door for tax dollars to pay for all elective abortions,” said Cutler.
“Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act is the gold standard for a middle ground and compromise over reproductive rights law,” Cutler said. “It was passed with bipartisan support and signed by a Democratic governor. The court opening this law does nothing but further the divide over such a sensitive topic and will only lead to more mischief and bad faith where lawmakers and other elected officials should be leading with respect and understanding.”
Jeremy Samek, senior counsel for the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which filed a friend of the court brief in the case, said, “The good news is that the abortion industry failed to receive a majority of the court ruling to invent a right to an abortion in our state’s Constitution. “The bad news is three justices overruled the longstanding state law – upheld by seven members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court nearly 40 years ago – that prevents taxpayer funding of elective abortions.”
Michael Geer, president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, added, “Two of the justices – Christine Donahue and David Wecht – agreed with the abortion industry’s request to declare a ‘fundamental right to reproductive autonomy,’ something not found in the Pennsylvania Constitution. Creating such a sweeping right would have severe implications, including allowing unfettered abortion until birth. Thankfully, this did not gain support from other members of the court.”
I remember it as if it was yesterday. Thirteen years ago, I attended a PA Senate hearing in Harrisburg, where appalling details were revealed from the just-released grand jury report on Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his West Philadelphia abortion facility. One could hear a pin drop as state lawmakers sat in shocked silence as they were told of the barbaric conditions women experienced at Gosnell’s state-licensed abortion facility that, scandalously, went without inspection for years.
I was especially impacted by the stark truth stated by then-Senator John Rafferty at the hearing: “We’ve allowed a man to continue to butcher women, butcher babies and nobody did a damn thing about it.”
Thankfully, the General Assembly did take action to do something about it, passing a law later that year to address the gap left by past governors and their administrations by requiring abortion facilities to follow the same health and safety regulations that every other surgical facility in the state follows, including unannounced annual inspections.
Act 122 passed in 2011 with strong bipartisan support, with more than three-quarters of the State House voting yes, including 45 Democrats and all but one Republican. (Note: Then Rep. Josh Shapiro, and now governor, voted no on this critical bill.)
Gosnell is forever engraved into Pennsylvania’s past. Sadly, some are beginning to forget this part of our state’s history, or worse, people in power are intentionally ignoring this history as if it never happened. This is putting women at risk all over again.
Case in point, Planned Parenthood, the state’s largest abortion business that profits from half of all abortions in Pennsylvania, teamed up with a few state representatives to hold a press conference in Harrisburg this month to introduce a new bill that would repeal the abortion clinic regulations enacted in response to the Gosnell atrocities. They even called for requirements of hospital admitting privileges for abortionists to be revoked. It’s all evidence for how women’s health is not a priority for the abortion industry.
At their press conference, State Rep. Mary Isaacson (D-Philadelphia) went so far as to say in reference to the 2011 bill, “There is no reason to have the standards put forth in that bill.”
A statement like this is simply not based on reality. It reveals how a push for unrestricted abortion makes you untethered from understanding the real needs of your community.
Rep. Isaacson knows exactly why this bill was passed in 2011 because she was a staffer when this was passed overwhelmingly in the PA House. Kermit Gosnell was the catalyst for this necessary change, yet there was not one mention of Gosnell at this recent press event. One can only conclude that the absence was intentional, and it shows Planned Parenthood doubling down in their lobbying to put the profits of the abortion industry over the well-being of Pennsylvanians and their families.
There are several reasons for these safety regulations on abortion facilities. Look no further than the grand jury report on Gosnell; a jury admittedly covering a wide spectrum of beliefs on abortion. They recognized it was “for political reasons” that inspections on abortion facilities stopped and recommended they be treated as ambulatory surgical facilities: “There is no justification for denying abortion patients the protections available to every other patient of an ambulatory surgical facility, and no reason to exempt abortion clinics from meeting these standards.” (pg 249)
Women died after abortions at Gosnell’s clinic. A young girl, Semika Shaw, was five months pregnant when she went to have an abortion and Gosnell perforated her uterus. By the time Shaw’s family took her to the hospital, she had died of sepsis.
Semika’s cousin, Margo Davidson, was a state representative at the time of the vote on this 2011 bill. Davidson, a Delaware County Democrat, honored her cousin’s memory with her yes vote, commenting on the floor that this bill “seeks to safeguard the health of women that is long overdue.”
We also know Gosnell and his horrific clinic was not an outlier. For example, another abortion mill in PA, Hillcrest in Harrisburg, was forced to shut down in 2017 when state inspections found numerous health and safety infractions. Local women were saying they wouldn’t even take their cat there because of the filthy conditions.
Since Gosnell, not only have abortion facilities in Pennsylvania botched abortion procedures on women but have been caught attempting to avoid hospital involvement or covering up the incident. In 2021, Allentown Women’s Center botched an abortion on an 18-year-old girl who was over four months pregnant. She had returned to this abortion facility complaining of “10 out of 10” pain. Instead of immediately involving a hospital, the abortion facility tried another procedure and delayed her eventual need for hospital care. She ended up needing four units of blood and four units of plasma in her recovery from a cervical laceration.
Last year, Planned Parenthood York “failed to report a serious event” – likely a botched abortion. There was an allegation made that this facility failed to report it and the claim was “substantiated” by the Department of Health.
These recent incidents fail to adhere to ambulatory surgical facility standards. Each abortion facility was reprimanded, but no inspection record shows a fine or temporary shut down of an abortion facility for these serious infractions.
How many more of these serious events would there be if Pennsylvania still lived in the Gosnell era when abortion surgery was treated differently than any other surgery?
Mandated inspections matter. If anything, the state could be doing more to hold abortion facilities accountable. Since 2012, abortion facilities in PA have failed 179 state health inspections, including repeat offenses.
Bottom line: We cannot forget what was uncovered thirteen years ago with Gosnell and the laxed regulations on abortion facilities. Women and girls deserve better than abortion. And abortion facilities need more than the Gosnell standards, or lack thereof, we once had.
Especially for Pennsylvania, let’s make sure we never have another Gosnell happen again.
Many of the most important events of 2023 are even more significant because they shape the landscape for 2024 which I think will be a more consequential year.
Despite huge voter dissatisfaction with inflation and Biden’s economy, Democrats won many important elections in 2023. They won for two reasons: the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and because of the huge edge they have in mail-in voting.
I’m in the camp that thinks abortion will not have quite as much power in the elections of 2024. However, the Supreme Court is supposed to rule in June on whether or not the abortion inducing drug Mifepristonem which can be mailed over state lines and whether it is safe. If they restrict it, this could be a key issue in 2024.
As far as the mail -in ballot, Republicans still do not the urgency needed to compete with Democrats. President Trump not his supporters to vote this way. In Pennsylvania, I’m convinced that state GOP leaders are not going all out to compete.
Activists like Scott Presler and Citizens Alliance are doing vital work in getting Republicans to use mail-in balloting, but they need a lot more resources. A sign of how intense Democrats are on this issue, is that were outside polling places in November, trying to convince Democrats to vote by mail in 2024 and registering them to receive ballots on the spot.
Probably, the most hopeful sign on the local level, was Cherelle Parker becoming the next mayor of Philadelphia. She will bring a great deal of energy and good ideas to the job. She also defeated extreme progressive and former City Councilperson Helen Gym, who would have been a disaster for the entire area.
In her victory speech, Parker drew a red line with Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner over the issue of retail theft. Her statement, “You won’t be able to go in the store and steal $499 worth of merchandise and just think it’s OK,” is a direct shot at a memo Krasner sent to his attorneys about not prosecuting theft cases under $500.
Speaking of redlines, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Senate and Governor Shapiro recently drew another red line blocking Krasner by giving the Pennsylvania Attorney General the power to appoint a special prosecutor who can prosecute crimes that happen on SEPTA property or its vicinity. Some analysis says this power would extend over huge areas of the city.
The biggest international story with huge local implications was the October 7th Hamas savage attacks on Israelis. This attack and subsequent implied support of it by various groups across the Delaware Valley resulted in the resignation of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill for not explicitly condemning those calling for the state of Israel to be abolished. It also resulted in two educators on local suburban school boards to be forced to resign.
Let’s hope that Hamas is vanquished soon and peace is restored.
RFK Jr. and Taylor Swift are two people who had big impacts in 2023 and I expect even more in 2024. Kennedy’s announcement that he will run as an independent in 2024, has major parties worried. In what I think will be a very close presidential election, I think he could tip the balance in a swing state like Pennsylvania. Swift was an economic and pop culture force second to none. I believe she will intervene with young women in 2024 supporting Democrats, particularly on the issue of abortion.
The last major “personality” that I worry about for 2024 is AI. What role will AI play in upcoming elections? However, my rock-solid belief is that Delaware Valley Journal won’t have AI writing columns. See you in 2024.
Democrats won big across the Delaware Valley in last Tuesday’s election. It was clear that abortion rights and, to some degree, possible challenges to the 2024 presidential election carried the day. After the election, Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman, reportedly said Dobbs and democracy won the 2023 election, and those issues will carry Democrats to victory in 2024.
Dobbs is a reference to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and sent abortion rights battles back to the states. Democracy is a reference to President Donald Trump and the challenges he raised about the 2020 election results.
But I don’t think that Dobbs or democracy gave us the Democrats’ victory in the Central Bucks School Board elections. I think the unrelenting and false attacks by The Philadelphia Inquirer and WHYY demonized people like school board President Dana Hunter and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Abraham M. Lucabaugh.
The theme of both news outlets was that Lucabaugh, Hunter, and other Republican board members were on wholesale book-banning campaigns and were callous or biased toward students who were gay or transgender.
In my view, this coverage was so intense because the district is one of the biggest, wealthiest, and most educated in the entire state. It also had a fairly conservative board elected after bitter battles about masking and school closures during the COVID crisis.
I think the election of that conservative school board was a message that citizens in Central Bucks thought the previous COVID policies were too restrictive. And the demotion of Dr. David Damsker, Bucks public health chief, at the behest of the Wolf administration and carried out by the Bucks County commissioners also created a backlash.
Damsker had gained a large following across the state as he advocated loosening masking restrictions and early return of students to school even if they had previously had a fever.
The next firestorm for that board involved whether parents should be notified if their child wanted to be identified by pronouns that didn’t match their sex at birth. The superintendent said there would be discussions around each individual case, but the indication was that parents would be told.
How is this hateful to kids? It is the essence of parental rights that you be told about your child when, for whatever reason, they ask that their pronoun be changed. Do the newly elected school board members think parents should not be notified because they might get angry and abuse their child? Do they really believe collaborating with the child and lying to parents is a good policy? Somehow, with their allies in the media, the new board members were able to make a civil rights matter for kids as young as 7 or 8.
The media already mentioned, along with the Bucks County Courier Times, also conjured up the notion that Hunter and the others were on massive book-banning crusades. I interviewed Hunter and others extensively, and it was clear they crafted policies that restricted only very sexually graphic materials.
These were the books that you’ve seen parents stopped from reading passages from at school board meetings because they were so graphic. Any legitimate school district should not be making books like “Lawn Boy” or “Gender Queer” available to students.
So, what happens next? I like the thoughts of defeated school candidate Dr. Stephen Mass, who was interviewed by the DVJournal.
He said, “The only winners in Tuesday’s elections are the private schools, who will see their enrollment skyrocket in the next few years when parents see what policies are coming into our district.” I think Mass has a good crystal ball.
What drove voters to the polls in Ohio wasn’t politics or partisanship — it was values. More and more people today are motivated not by party loyalty but by the issues they care about and the threats they see to their most basic rights.
Ohio saw that the right to control your own health choices and bodily autonomy is clear, conspicuous and easily understood.
That’s why Issue 1, which would have made it harder to enshrine abortion rights into the Ohio Constitution, was overwhelmingly defeated, just as other anti-abortion ballot initiatives were voted down in red and purple states like Michigan, Kentucky and Kansas in 2022.
And that’s why today, the forces and factors that went into the shocking victory in Ohio for abortion rights are poised to play a decisive role in the 2024 elections.
Ohio voters from across the political spectrum recognized that abortion bans have nothing to do with women’s health and everything to do with the power some politicians want to retain over women’s lives, their futures, and their bodily autonomy.
No one wants to live in that kind of society — or see their daughters, granddaughters, nieces and loved ones have to grow up under those conditions.
Voters turned out in record numbers, with 57 percent voting against the measure, a victory margin of almost 430,000 votes out of more than 3 million cast. Even Ohioans who hadn’t voted in 2022 came out in the summer heat to stand up for their rights and values.
According to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, “In the early vote alone, there were 30,000 voters who voted in (the) election that hadn’t voted in 2022, and they were largely women and African-American women.”
The test for 2024 is whether those voters will stay engaged in Ohio and across the country. I believe they will.
There’s tremendous energy at the grassroots level to work for the change we need to see in the priorities our lawmakers set — and the ones they ignore. In the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 14 states have made abortion illegal, and many more are considering abortion restrictions and bans that make it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain abortion care.
The Ohio vote shows the power of grassroots action, coalition building and common-sense conversations about the issues that matter.
After the results came in from Ohio, abortion rights advocates in Arizona filed a ballot measure to protect those rights in the Arizona Constitution. A 15-week abortion ban was signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican. At the same time, those pushing for a near-total ban on abortions appealed a court ruling preventing doctors from being prosecuted under a law that’s been on the books since Arizona was a territory.
“We’re just one bad court decision away from a total abortion ban that carries prison time for doctors,” said Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who focused on abortion rights during her 2022 campaign.
The need to codify abortion rights into state law couldn’t be more precise — and the stakes in the 2024 election couldn’t be higher. Arizona is just one of a handful of battleground states that could determine the outcome of the presidential election — with a Senate race on the ballot that could determine party control.
And in Ohio, the abortion rights coalition that beat Issue 1 remains in place to make a difference in abortion-rights defender Sen. Sherrod Brown’s re-election campaign.
Abortion will be on the ballot in 2024, from the presidential campaign on down. And so will contraception — as regulatory and court decisions that make over-the-counter care more available, candidates are campaigning to enact more restrictions on that access.
The political decisions being made to control women’s bodily autonomy will directly affect those who are already facing the worst discrimination and obstacles to accessing healthcare. States with the most restrictive abortion bans have some of the highest rates of Black maternal death — as much as 38 percent greater than in states without abortion restrictions.
A new coalition of values-based voters is emerging, challenging old political assumptions and building centers of strength and effectiveness. Ohio showed us what’s possible — now it’s up to us to show what’s next.
American commentators have become masters at the art of “narrative building.” No matter the situation, no matter the facts, they have a unique ability to take a story and fit it into one of our preconceived notions of how the world works. A quick scroll online will find a finely produced editorial or podcast segment on any issue.
In Ohio, we’ve witnessed this finely tuned skill at work after the August 8 election on Issue 1. This proposed constitutional amendment would have elevated the threshold to amend our state constitution to 60 percent.
The rationale for this proposal was straightforward: Ohio was one of 10 states allowing its constitution to be amended via citizen-initiated petitions with only a 50 percent vote.
This has led to a bloated state constitution packed with special-interest political agendas. The same document that safeguards free speech and religious liberty also has the specific land plots of the location of the “Toledo Hollywood Casino” enshrined essentially forever.
My organization, Center for Christian Virtue, a Christian public-policy organization in Columbus, Ohio, encouraged a “Yes” vote.
Unfortunately, the ballot issued failed: 57 percent voted No, and 43 percent voted Yes.
In the background of this debate was another proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize abortion, up to birth, without the mother’s parents’ consent.
Unsurprisingly, after the loss of Issue 1, the media, including friends on the right, jumped on this as an opportunity to opine about abortion politics. They used this as a microcosm of how the pro-life position is not a winner and is a political drain on the conservative movement.
They tried to claim we lost because of the abortion issue.
Yet, if any of these brilliant commentators had chosen to look at what happened in Ohio, they would have seen a very different, more interesting and important story.
The reality was the debate around elevating the threshold to amend the state constitution to 60 percent is a decades-old debate in Ohio. In fact, five years ago when this proposal was put forward, the resolution was co-sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat.
The fundamental message of the “No” campaign on August 8 had absolutely nothing to do with abortion. The name of the campaign was “One person/One vote.” They ran a very effective, if not manipulative, ad campaign targeted at core Republican and conservative voters, claiming this amendment would “end majority rule” and steal their voice.
In fact, one infamous ad paid for by “Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Freedom” ended with the slogan “Stop the Steal.”
Not “Protect Abortion Rights.” Not “Abortion is Awesome.” But “Stop the Steal.”
The opposition’s most potent ad had a pair of scissors cutting up the U.S. Constitution, with no mention of “reproductive rights” or abortion pills.
In Ohio, to say protecting unborn children and their mothers is a losing issue is nonsensical. Look no further than Gov. Mike DeWine. When DeWine ran in 2018, he boldly promised to sign the CCV-backed Heartbeat Bill to ban abortion once a heartbeat is detected in an unborn child.
At all three debates, the issue came up, and DeWine won and proceeded to sign the life-saving bill.
In 2022, his opponent tried to hang this issue around his neck — and she did very effectively. But instead of being a weight to drag him down, it was more like a gold medal, and DeWine won re-election by more than 40 points, winning 85 out of Ohio’s 88 counties.
Add all this up, and it shows the actual narrative that’s much more Ohio-specific but does have national implications.
The opposition to Issue 1 recognized — and what the political left has correctly identified — is that their positions on critical social issues are so unpopular that they have to use their significant financial advantage to change the topic to win.
You will see this on full display in the coming months in the U.S. Senate. Ohio’s Sherrod Brown is up for re-election and is rehearsing his aw-shucks, union-guy, let’s-grab-a-beer-and-talk-about-the-Browns shtick. In truth, he’s hoping to do everything he can to not face the fact that he votes with Joe Biden 98 percent of the time.
And so it will go with the abortion debate in Ohio. The abortion industry’s only hope to win is if they can effectively downplay or ignore their proposal’s extreme and broad nature and convince Ohioans that this isn’t an attack on parental rights.
Either way, this is a story that has yet to be written, and my encouragement to our national narrative builders is to spend a little less time online and more time understanding American voters.
Pro-life activist Mark Houck may be riding the fame that came from being wrongfully prosecuted by the federal government all the way to Congress.
Houck announced he will challenge four-term Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Bucks) in the 2024 Republican primary.
In January, a jury acquitted Houck, 48, of all charges. The Bucks County father had been accused of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act on Oct. 13, 2021, when he pushed a volunteer escort at a Planned Parenthood clinic on Locust Street in Philadelphia. The escort, who had confronted Houck’s 12-year-old son, Mark Jr., was not seriously injured. Philadelphia courts declined to prosecute Houck, but after Roe v. Wade was overturned about a year later, the U.S. Department of Justice brought charges.
Houck, who protested in front of abortion clinics for years, could have been sentenced to 11 years in prison if convicted.
During a podcast interview, Houck told DVJournal he believes the Biden administration has implemented a two-tier, partisan justice system targeting “American citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights.”
“I’m an enemy of the state, as are many others like me. And we saw that all played out in 2022. It’s still playing out,” Houck said. “So, clearly, there is an agenda there. And you know, I’ve been doing this for 20 years now. All of a sudden, Roe v. Wade gets overturned in June 2022. And now I’m a target of the federal government. Come on!”
Asked why he’s running, Houck gave an apocalyptic answer: “Because the republic is falling apart. That’s what Congressman Scott Perry (R-Dauphin) shared with me when I asked him his thoughts about me running. And he said, ‘Look, we need people of integrity. We need people of your character in Washington. So, if not you, then who? Right? So that’s the short answer. Obviously, what happened to me and my family, my wife and seven children, you know, we don’t want that ever to happen to anyone else ever again in this country.”
Asked about challenging a pro-life Republican in a Democratic corner of the state, Houck rejected the idea that Fitzpatrick is truly pro-life.
Houck cited the congressman’s vote to fund abortions for military members. However, Fitzpatrick has voted in favor of pro-life bills, including the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a resolution against violence against pregnancy resource centers, and against the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that would wipe out state pro-life laws and permit abortion unit the moment of birth.
Asked about Houck’s candidacy, the national organization SBA Pro-Life America sounded supportive.
“The Biden-Harris administration will stop at nothing, including weaponizing the Justice Department to punish political enemies like Mark Houck and protect the abortion industry that spends millions to elect them. It is clear the administration has put a target on anyone who reveals the horror of abortion and works to protect unborn children and their mothers. In this new Dobbs era, that’s why it is so important to have pro-life leaders and put a stop to the Democrats’ extreme agenda.”
Houck, a Kintnersville resident, said that while abortion is not his only issue, “The life of the child in utero is, is of [primary] importance. And of course, you know, all things flow from that. So our decisions on energy, our decisions on education, our decisions on the environment, they’re all going to stem from the dignity of the human person.”
Houck said he is pro-legal immigration but not the “22 million” illegal immigrants who have entered the country under Biden’s policies. He is also concerned about fentanyl that is killing thousands.
Ashley Garecht, vice chair of the Pro-Life Union of Philadelphia, said, “As a nonprofit, the PLU does not endorse any political candidates. Mark has been a staunch defender of the unborn for decades, and his work for The King’s Men and in partnership with the Pro-Life Union has had a significant effect on the lives of hundreds of families dealing with crisis pregnancies.
“Given the egregious behavior of the Biden administration’s Department of Justice last year, weaponizing the full force of government in an attempt to strip Mark of his First Amendment and parental rights and intimidate into silence the broader Philadelphia pro-life movement, it is no surprise that Mark is now focused on reforming a federal government that has disintegrated into corruption and one-sided application of justice.”
But some political pundits believe Houck will need a miracle to prevail.
“Does anyone really believe Mr. Houck will do better than the other GOP challengers who fell to Congressman Fitzpatrick in the past?” asked Christopher Nicholas, a political consultant with Eagle Consulting Group. “That district has no history in general elections of supporting Republicans whose only top issue is pro-life. I don’t expect that to change next year,” said Nicholas, who grew up in Bucks County.
Fitzpatrick did not respond to requests for comment.
On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court, with its Dobbs decision, reversed its intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt January 22, 1973, Roe v. Wade decision, which invented a “constitutional right to abortion” under a “right to privacy” and a “trimester scheme.”
As a result, as reported by the state Department of Health (DOH), abortions in Pennsylvania rose from 8,540 in 1972 to a peak of 65,777 in 1980 to approximately 34,400 in 2022. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 24 states now have greater protections than allowed under Roe, with 12 states banning all or most abortions.
According to FiveThirtyEight, these protections have resulted in 24,290 fewer abortions between July 2022 and March 2023. However, such an expansion in Pennsylvania, from our current 24-week gestational limit, with some exceptions, is not currently realistic because of the election of another pro-abortion governor. However, our movement remains able to defeat pro-abortion legislation, such as H.B.428, introduced by the narrow Democrat majority in the Pennsylvania House, which seeks to eliminate many of Pennsylvania’s current abortion regulations, such as parental and informed consent, and permit non-physicians to commit abortions.
Dobbs has also renewed the public square debate on the “abortion issue,” which has produced mixed results. Governors who articulately defended their signing protective legislation (such as in Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio) easily won reelection in 2022. However, candidates who did not articulately defend their pro-life position and did not criticize their opponents for support of legislation such as H.B.428 (e.g., Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano) lost.
State referenda results also emphasize the need to articulate the pro-life position regarding “exceptions.” The pro-life movement supports the most protective legislation that is politically viable. Such a position allows support for legislation with “exceptions” (which will still save many mothers and children from abortion) as long as the pro-life position is publicly expressed.
Abortion is the direct and intentional killing of a child in the womb. Thus, a procedure done to preserve the life of an expectant mother, such as the removal of an ectopic pregnancy or a premature delivery, is not an abortion. Support for a “rape exception” removes all of the love and justice from the pro-life position.
The basis for banning abortion then becomes whether the expectant mother consented to sexual activity that led to the child’s conception. Such an exception also punishes the child for the crime of his or her biological father. We acknowledge the need to better persuade our fellow citizens to the pro-life position, which is that every child should be welcomed in life and protected by law.
However, we will never persuade our fellow citizens to this position if we abandon it. In addition to changing public policy, the pro-life movement seeks to change our culture and the minds of abortion-minded women. Both of these efforts require renewing a proper view of human sexuality, which is a God-given gift ordered to unity and procreation in marriage.
Restoring this order will greatly reduce abortions (according to the Pennsylvania DOH, almost 90 percent of abortions continue to be committed on unmarried women) and will yield many other benefits. These include reducing crime, as most of Philadelphia’s record number of murders are committed by young men raised without fathers.
Our area’s cultural and political leaders continue to ignore this reality by euphemistically labeling these murders as “gun violence,” as if guns are shooting themselves. The position that “abortion is health care” requires a view that motherhood is a disease and the child in the womb may be treated as a tumor.
The pro-life side needs to emphasize that, along with his or her mother, children in the womb are patients who have been successfully cured of numerous adverse conditions. This website presents the details of these amazing stories, which are summarized by, “A patient is a person, no matter how small.”
Our Philadelphia area pro-life movement observed the first anniversary of Roe’s reversal on Saturday, June 24, with a Center City March For Life and a rally on Independence Mall. We also conducted the world’s largest Baby Shower to benefit our area’s network of services to expectant mothers and their families, which remains one of the most extensive in our nation.
Two women running in a special election for state representative in Delaware County had sharp elbows out during a debate.
Those women and a Libertarian are vying for the 163rd seat vacated by Rep. Mike Zabel, a Democrat, in the wake of sexual harassment allegations—a seat that could tip control of the House back to Republicans.
Two women –Republican Katie Ford and Democrat Heather Boyd—sparred in a debate that aired on PHL 17 over the weekend.
Asked about sexual harassment, Ford said, “The first thing I would do is make sure that didn’t happen. And make sure that it didn’t get covered up. And make sure the women who have gone through these challenges are represented correctly…And if something happens, I’m not going to put politics in front of common sense, and common sense says that if someone comes to you and says they’re being sexually harassed, you do something about it. You don’t just let it go. And you don’t continue to endorse someone. You don’t continue to champion for them.”
GOP House candidate Katie Ford
Boyd, chair of the Upper Darby Democrats, said, “The culture of Harrisburg has definitely been one that’s not been a safe one for women. As a woman who has worked in Harrisburg, I’ve witnessed sexual harassment. I’ve experienced sexual harassment. When (lobbyist) Andi Perez (one of Zabel’s accusers) came to me, she asked for my confidence that I help her change the rules and change the culture of Harrisburg. So when I met her in 2021, she asked for my help in securing the rule change, which is what I immediately worked to do…She wanted to change the rules to protect all women, and I worked to help her do that.”
“You continued to champion for him,” said Ford. “You continued to let him run. You were the political party boss. Why did that happen? You can protect privacy. But you can also go after the people who are doing this. You’re a woman. You should know better.”
Boyd denied that she endorsed Zabel after she learned about Perez’s allegations.
“Katie Ford fully does not know how the democratic process works,” said Boyd. She claimed she tried unsuccessfully to find someone to run in the 2022 primary against Zabel.
Abortion has become an issue in the campaign, with Democrats, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, hitting Ford with negative ads on the topic that the party sees as a winning issue since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“Deciding when, where, and how to have a family is a fundamentally private decision,” said Boyd, who stated she supports “a woman’s right to choose.”
“I don’t think the government should be making decisions about how a woman makes her choices. I think it’s intrusive. I think it takes away rights.”
Heather Boyd
Asked whether she supports late-term abortions, Boyd said she does not and agrees with Pennsylvania’s current law that limits abortion to the first 23 weeks, with some exceptions afterward for rape, incest, or to save a mother’s life.
Ford said Boyd is running “a $100,000 campaign to smear me on this issue.”
“Number one, I also believe it’s a woman’s right to choose. I’m a mother of a daughter…guess what? Things happen, and women should be allowed to make that decision. I support the current (law) that’s going on right now, and I would not change it.”
Pressed on the issue, Ford said she would not vote on a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion.
Boyd supports a four-bill gun control package that the Democratic-controlled House recently passed. Ford said she also supports those bills but went even further, saying potential gun owners should be required to have training before being allowed to purchase a weapon.
And both candidates called for more state funding for public education.
Alfeia Goodwin
“Obviously, this election has more significance with control of the House hanging in the balance,” said Christopher Borick, a political science professor and director of Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.
“The district has been trending increasingly Democrat over the past few cycles, and there are significantly more registered Democrats in the 163rd than registered Republicans. However, special elections have regularly produced upsets, and I think Republicans see an opportunity here. Given that independents are usually closed out of primaries and may not even be aware that they can vote in this race, it may pose a bit of a challenge for the Republicans, who likely need a good yield from this group to offset the Democratic registration advantage,” he said.
Ford answered questions from DVJournal about her positions, but Boyd did not respond.
Asked why she is running, Ford said, “I’m not a politician and never have been. What I am is a regular citizen tired of the politicians failing us and ready to step up and make a difference on crime, on inflation, on schools and education, and on helping real people.”
Ford said her top issue is “Bringing common sense to government and helping people. That’s what is needed on every issue, not just one. We need to make our communities safe again. We need schools to do better for our kids. We need to fight inflation to help working families and seniors. These are all things the politicians have failed on because they are playing partisan games instead of doing what’s common sense.”
When asked why voters should choose her, Ford answered, “I am like the people of the 163rd and want to be their commonsense voice. My experience is that of a lifelong resident, working mom, a volunteer in our schools, someone who works with families with special needs children, a U.S. Army veteran, and the wife of a police officer – not a politician.”
Ford is a special instructor for early intervention working with children and their families aged from birth to three. She is a long-time community volunteer and the mother of three. She met her husband while both were students at Upper Darby High School.
Boyd has two children and raised two foster children. She taught history and art history and served on the Upper Darby School Board. She has worked as chief of staff for state Rep. Leanne Krueger (D-Brookhaven) and as district director and senior advisor for U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Philadelphia/Delaware). As well as chairing the Upper Darby Democratic Committee, Boyd founded the Delaware County chapter of NOW.
In addition to Ford and Boyd, Libertarian Alfeia Goodwin is also vying for the office. An Upper Darby resident, she is a retired police officer, Army veteran, and brigade command chaplain.
The 163rd District includes a section of Upper Darby, Collingdale, Clifton Heights, Aldan, and part of Darby Township. The special election will be held on May 16, the same day as the primary.
Roughly two weeks before Pennsylvanians will go to the polls in the 2023 primary, Governor Josh Shapiro has inserted himself in the special election for House District 163 in Upper Darby, claiming in a television ad that if voters fail to elect the Democrat candidate, Republicans will make abortion illegal across the commonwealth.
“Delaware County, I need your help in the special election for state representative. The winner will determine which party controls the legislature. If Republican extremists win, they’ll take away my veto power by putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.”
Shapiro then concludes by asking Delaware County voters in the district to vote for the Democratic nominee, Heather Boyd. The Republican nominee is Katie Ford.
A top Republican campaign strategist said the ad was dishonest.
“Josh Shapiro jumped on the bandwagon for politician Heather Boyd and revealed political power is more important than honesty,” said Bob Bozzuto, executive director of the Pennsylvania House Republican Campaign Committee. “By doubling down on the lies about Katie Ford, Gov. Shapiro adds his name as a co-conspirator in the sexual harassment cover up that led to this Special Election,” he said, referring to the recent resignation of Mike Zabel, a Democrat.
Broad + Liberty asked the governor’s office to defend the statement that Republicans will “take away” his “veto power.” That request for comment was not returned.
It is true the Pennsylvania Constitution does not give the governor any power to veto legislation that would create proposed constitutional amendments, which are voted on by the people. Whether this equates to Republicans “taking away” that power is a matter of semantics. Nevertheless, the constitution does make the process more difficult, given that amendments to the constitution are more legally powerful than simple changes to state statute. For example, the legislation would have to pass both the Pennsylvania Senate and House in consecutive years, would have to survive legal challenges, and then win a majority of votes from the full commonwealth.
Additionally, for Shaprio’s claim to be true, he assumes that all 101 House Republicans would vote for the measure, and that there would be no breakaway votes from the party line — and that they could pull off that feat in consecutive years. Given that House Republicans had a difficult time electing a speaker at the beginning of the 2023 session when they still possessed a majority because of a technicality, maintaining pure party discipline across all 101 members would seem difficult.
The ad further illustrates that Democrats, in the commonwealth and nationwide, have come to see abortion as a winning wedge issue in the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned nearly 50 years under the ruling Roe v. Wade.
It also highlights the stakes of the special election, given that House Democrats took the majority for the first time in years after the 2022 elections, but did so with a slim one-seat margin that later would become up for grabs when Zabel was forced to resign under a cloud of sexual assault allegations.
Spotlight PA reporter Stephen Caruso earlier this week tweeted that Democrats are trying to rally the troops.
“According to two Democratic sources, House Democrats had a caucus-wide call this weekend asking members to put money into the election, citing concerns about the race,” he tweeted.
“It’s hard to tell what’s justified concern and what’s just irrational panic from Democrats [right now], or as some have described it, a fear of never having nice things,” he added.
Shapiro’s claim in the ad about abortion, however, is heavily disputed.
In the summer of 2022, the Republican-controlled senate did pass a bill that would create a ballot question asking voters to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution, but partisans are passionately divided over how far it would go.
The key paragraph of that legislation proposing the ballot question says, “The policy of Pennsylvania is to protect the life of every unborn child from conception to birth, to the extent permitted by the Federal Constitution. Nothing in this Constitution grants or secures any right relating to abortion or the public funding thereof. Nothing in this Constitution requires taxpayer funding of abortion.”
Republican lawmakers have said not conferring a right is vastly different from outlawing the procedure altogether.
“[Abortion is] legal, but it’s not a right,” Ward said. “The amendment just puts (into the state constitution) that it isn’t a right and that taxpayers aren’t mandated to foot the bill for an abortion.”
Democrats, however, have held to a message similar to Shaprio’s that abortion access would be “outlawed.”
Zabel’s resignation from the seat created its own political whirlwind, especially around the partisan control of the lower chamber, as well as the special election in the Delco.
When the House was deadlocked in January and then-Speaker Mike Rozzi went on a statewide “listening tour,” a lobbyist for the SEIU, Andi Perez, gave public testimony that she had been sexually assaulted in 2019 by a still-sitting member of the House.
In mid-February, Broad + Libertyreported that the identity of the person alleged to have inappropriately touched Perez was widely known in Harrisburg, but the report did not name the individual at that time. The report included a quote from a former Republican member of the House who alleged Democrats were not pursuing disciplining that member because it might flip the balance of power.
The report that named Zabel was possible because of new allegations made by an anonymous member of the House. Rep. Abby Major (R-Armstrong) later revealed herself as that accuser. Zabel resigned soon after Major publicly put her name behind the allegations.
Further reporting by other outlets showed Democrats knew about allegations against Zabel at least as far back as 2019.
Major can be seen in a television ad about the special election in which she claims Heather Boyd knew there were accusations of improper conduct swirling around Zabel in previous years, but that she was complicit as part of the county’s Democratic party machinery in sending Zabel back to the House regardless of that knowledge.
“Year after year, Heather Boyd sent the man who harassed me to Harrisburg by covering up his deplorable actions,” Major says in the ad.
Although the makeup of the district has voted Democratic in most top-of-the-ticket races like governor and president in recent years, there have also been notable Republican wins at the municipal level, making the race all the more interesting.
In the 2022 elections, House Republicans won the statewide vote by more than 300,000 votes but lost control of the chamber because of the way district lines were drawn. The 163rd district last elected a Republican in 2016.
The ad featuring Shapiro was paid for by the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee, and was approved by Heather Boyd. The ad featuring Rep. Major was paid for by Friends of Katie Ford.
