Just a few days before Monday’s anniversary of the now overturned Roe v. Wade decision, Bucks County’s Republican Congressman reminded voters that he and his fellow Republicans are not ending their crusade there.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick voted for two more anti-choice bills (HR 6194 and HR 6918) that not only spread Republican misinformation about reproductive health, but also help clear the path to the ultimate goal.
“Fitzpatrick’s latest votes last week are chipping away at women’s constitutional rights and denying them access to reproductive healthcare,” said Ashley Ehasz, who is running against Fitzpatrick for a second time. “Make no mistake that his votes are just another push to move our country towards a national abortion ban.”
These are just two votes in a long list that voters in the district would never know about if they solely rely on news from Gannett’s Bucks County Courier Times and Intelligencer newspapers, or even the weekly Bucks County Herald (now run by a former Courier Times editor). Why? Because they typically don’t report on how he votes (or at best act as stenographers or cheerleaders for the scant coverage that does trickle in.)
“I want to make sure folks know this is an anti-choice politician who is hell bent on selling women’s reproductive rights down the river,” said Ehasz.
And I want to help her.
Say what you will, but whether you are for forcing women to give birth, or instead (like me) support a woman’s right to reproductive freedom, voters have a right to know which side of the issue their elected officials stand on. Ehasz is loudly and proudly on the side of reproductive freedom and safeguarding access to abortion care.
As Ehasz reminded me, Fitzpatrick voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act – twice – once in 2021 before Roe was overturned, and then again after the Dobbs decision in July 2022. This legislation would have enshrined abortion care access into federal law.
“I think he truly believes that a woman cannot be trusted to make decisions when it comes to her body,” she added.
He does.
Fitzpatrick has made this clear time and again from his first weeks in office in 2017 when he voted for “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” and later that year for a 20-week abortion ban. Fitzpatrick has also voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
READ: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick Attempts to Pad His Small Donor Stats By Pleading for $1 Donations
More recently he voted to limit military members’ access to abortion care – taking away reproductive freedom and health care from those tasked with defending our freedom. This issue really stings Ehasz, a U.S. Army Veteran and Apache helicopter pilot.
“Big picture, this is one, not thanking those women for the sacrifices they’re already making,” said Ehasz. “It’s putting their families in these really tough positions, and making them second class citizens in the country they’re willing to defend with their lives.”
That’s a really important point, and not just for service members.
Lawmakers like Fitzpatrick are effectively reducing women to “birthing vessels” and “wards of the state.” The fact that miscarriage is now being criminalized in different parts of the country just underscores this GOP-led dehumanization campaign. And let this sink in: about one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage.
“It’s terrifying,” said Ehasz. “And it shows that the GOP majority has a playbook of just further and further criminalizing being a woman.”
Access to contraception is next, as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has already stated.
What’s interesting though is Fiztpatrick only proudly proclaims his anti-choice bona fides quietly to selective audiences (thanks in part to the aforementioned lack of media coverage). He has this marketing scheme where he brands himself a “moderate,” which in part is successful because local media help keep voters in the dark. On his Congressional website, he only highlights certain votes. For instance, he must have forgotten to include his anti-abortion votes from Thursday. His newsletter is equally worthless by design if you want to know how he votes on the issues that matter most. And don’t ever expect him to have the courage to host an in-person town hall. Unscripted questions would just be too exposing, let alone the process being too democratic.
READ: Bucks County Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick’s Worst Votes of 2023
“I think he is a very fearful person. I think he is someone who lacks courage and conviction,” said Ehasz. “He is also very fearful of particularly the women in this district who will absolutely vote him out of his seat.”
It’s not hard to understand why.
We’ve actually already seen the type of post-Dobbs voter backlash Fitzpatrick is terrified of. Not just in Pennsylvania, but also in states like Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky, and other locales across the country.
This Congressional district seems primed to be the next domino to fall, but only if voters are aware of just how extremist our anti-choice Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick is. I’ll do my part, will you?
