Pennsylvania on Monday joined a growing number of Republican-led states seeking to restrict or effectively ban abortions as two lawmakers unveiled legislation for so-called “heartbeat bills.”
Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin County, and Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, R-Clinton County, made good on their promise to introduce a measure they said will take on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision that legalized abortion.
“When you hear a baby’s heartbeat, everything changes,” said Borowicz, during an emotionally fueled press conference at the Capitol. “If you can be declared dead when the heart stops why not declared alive when it starts?”
Like other so-called heartbeat bills, Senate Bill 912 and House Bill 1977 would prohibit abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected.
Borowicz and Mastriano held the press conference in a Capitol media center packed with anti-abortion supporters, including members of the Pro-Life Federation. On stage, Mastriano and Borowicz were flanked by a several dozen state legislators, as well as constituents, including children who held placards that read, “Hear a Heartbeat. Hear Him.”
“We are asking the Commonwealth to stand with us,” Borowicz said. “Enough is enough. It’s time to turn the table. I believe we have the upper hand in Pennsylvania and across the nation. We will not be silent any longer.”
The Clinton County Republican re-iterated the idea that the heartbeat bill could be the “dagger in Roe v Wade.”
The introduction of the bills comes just one week after the Pro-Life Federation marked its 40th annual anniversary, calling for an overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Medical doctors and reproductive rights advocates argue that heartbeat proposals amount to a near-total ban on abortions. The proposals would prohibit abortion before many women know they are pregnant. Moreover, health professionals, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, argue that such abortion measures do not reflect medical accuracy.
“Banning abortion at six weeks bans abortion before many people even know they’re pregnant," said Ashley Lenker White, executive director of Planned Parenthood PA Advocates. “This bill is nothing but another unconstitutional attempt to ban abortion in Pennsylvania.”
Gov. Tom Wolf has vowed to veto such a bill.
A number of states have passed a variety of similar laws, driven in large part to President Trump’s appointment of two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, as well as passage of a sweeping abortion law in New York.
In general, such anti-abortion laws have either been struck down or challenged as unconstitutional in state and federal courts.
“It’s a waste of taxpayer time and money, and the General Assembly’s time would be better spent focusing on laws that would actually help Pennsylvanians access vital reproductive and health-care services,” Lenker White said.
Heartbeat bills compel medical practitioners about to perform abortions to use “standard medical practice” to determine whether the fetus has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is present, the doctor is prohibited from performing an abortion. In most cases, the procedure would be permitted if the life of the mother was on the line. Medical experts say the cardiovascular system of a fetus is not yet developed at this time.
Mastriano, who framed his support for the measures against his 30-plus years of military service, said he intended to continue to fight to save lives and fight for freedom.
“Together we are going to change history,” he said. “Without fire and brimstone. We are going to come with love and kindness speaking the truth with love. The truth is a powerful thing.”
Mastriano said the measures introduced by him and Borowicz approached the topic of abortion from a reasonable and logical approach, and represented a scientific and medically based discussion.
He stressed that in the decades since passage of Roe v. Wade advances in science have provided much more information “about what goes on in the womb.”
He said the argument “back then” was that it was “a blob of tissue," lashing out that it was a human life, not a bald eagle or a Labrador retriever.
“We have to fight the good fight,” Mastriano said. "We are not going to win any victories if we capitulate. That is one problem many of us have on this issue. It can grow weary. We’ve been trying. We heard so many promises. You campaigned. You speak all these truths and how we are going to fight but when it’s time to stand up we say, ‘well the governor isn’t going to pass it.’ ......I refuse to surrender. I‘m going to fight this to my dying breath. This is a fight worth fighting and I ‘m going to fight till the end.”
At time, the packed media center broke out in applause.
Borowicz, who acknowledged that many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks, stressed that her intent was to save lives and change the course of history.
“I would love to see Roe v. Wade overturned, of course,” she said. “Sixty million babies’ lives have been lost.”
She said she wanted Pennsylvania to be part of what she said is a momentum for banning abortion rights.
“I don’t know if this will end up in the courts or not,” Borowicz said. “We’ll take it one step at a time but as you can see the momentum is building..... I believe it will be able to be enacted as a law in these states and I want Pennsylvania to be a part of it.”
In a written statement, Women’s Law Project senior staff attorney Susan J. Frietsche excoriated the proposed measures: “Even the anti-abortion lawyers who write these boilerplate bills concede they’re blatantly unconstitutional. If a six-week ban passed, Governor Wolf would veto it. If it somehow survives his veto, we would challenge it in court. It’s shocking how some lawmakers are willing to exploit the lives of their constituents to win some cheap political points with anti-abortion donors and lobbyists.”
The press conference at times turned emotional with the testimonies of several speakers, including Kathy Barnette, a Fox News personality who has become a spokeswoman for the anti-abortion movement. Barnette shared her often-heard story about how she was a product of a rape; her mother was 11 when she was raped.
Barnette excoriated abortion rights as an attempt to annihilate blacks.
“Lynching got nothing on Planned Parenthood,” Barnette said. “What slavery could not do in 200 years, and what Jim Crow laws could not do in 100 years, abortion and organizations like Planned Parenthood have succeeded in annihilating whole generations of black people. Liberals tell us it’s about women’s choice. No it’s about undesirable populations.”
Amid growing attempts by states to restrict or ban abortion, courts have widely struck down such measures.
Earlier this month, just six months after it was signed into law, Georgia’s heartbeat bill was struck down in federal court. District Judge Steve C. Jones sided with the plaintiffs, including Planned Parenthood and several women’s health clinics, finding that the law violated Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Earlier this month, a divided federal appeals court ruled that Ohio could not enforce a 2017 law banning abortions when medical tests show that a fetus has Down syndrome.
Public support for legal abortion remains high. Currently, 61 percent of Americans polled say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 38 percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases. Meanwhile, the U.S. abortion rate continues a long-term downward trend, according to the Guttmacher Institute. In 2017, the abortion rate dropped to 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, down from 14.6 in 2014. That continues a downward trend since the peak in 1980 of 29.3.
Abortion rights are poised to top the election-year SCOTUS agenda.
Analysts note that the high court - which now has a conservative majority with the Trump appointments of Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh - could in effect issue a de facto overturn of Roe v. Wade when it hears and rules a lawsuit challenging a Louisiana law that attempted to make abortions illegal in that state. The court is expected to allow states to make abortion all but illegal. The Louisiana law is considered a TRAP law - short for “targeted regulation of abortion providers”. Such laws impose such restrictive regulations on abortion providers that they basically go out of business, so while abortion remains legal, the laws make it impossible for women to access abortion services.
This story was updated to clarify medical position on ‘heartbeat bills.’
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