In the post-Roe world of the United States, two Pennsylvania state senators are working to secure reproductive rights for the commonwealth.
Senators Amanda Cappelletti (D-Montgomery and Delaware County) and Judy Schwank (D-Berks County) recently proposed The Reproductive Freedom Act to make abortion services more accessible.
SB 837 was introduced June 4 and currently resides in the Judiciary Committee. It looks to repeal the state’s Abortion Control Act and replace it with a legal framework that protects Pennsylvanians privacy and well-being, increases access to reproductive health care, and remove undue burdens on providers and practitioners.
In an interview with the Bucks County Beacon, Senator Cappelletti said she and her co-sponsors hope to move the current legislation from the Crimes Code to the Human Services Code, where the rest of health care regulations are located. In a report conducted by Pregnancy Justice, which identified nearly 1,400 criminal arrests of pregnant women, Pennsylvania had the highest rate out of the whole Northeast.
“In Pennsylvania, our current law puts regulations around abortion care in the criminal code, and that is absolutely unacceptable. Health care is not a crime,” Cappelletti said.
The 1982 Abortion Control Act’s restrictions include requiring patients to wait at least 24 hours between the initial consultation and procedure, minors to acquire parental consent, physicians to adhere to a 24-week gestational cutoff, and providers to complete a report about the procedure. The bill would amend Titles 18 (crimes and offenses), 35 (health and safety), and 40 (insurance) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes in provisions relating to abortion to reverse these unnecessary and potentially harmful constraints.
Cappelletti is also proposing a “proactive rights-based framework” that ensures access to abortion care without state-legislated delays or barriers, as well as including privacy protections for the patient and provider.
“We believe that it is urgent that we have policy that is reflective of evidence-based medicine, and we know a 24-hour waiting period is not evidence-based medicine – it’s medically unnecessary,” Cappelletti said. “Parental notifications, over-regulating our facilities, all of these things that we’re removing are medically unnecessary.”
Adam Hosey, political director at Planned Parenthood PA Advocates, said the 24-hour waiting period is the only procedure in Pennsylvania where a provider “tells you you have to wait an extra day to think on it.”
READ: If Abortion Abolitionists Get Their Way, Women Who Get an Abortion Will Face Homicide Charges
Hosey added that despite the 1992 Supreme Court ruling against spousal consent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, it’s still written in the Abortion Care Act. The Reproductive Freedom Act would “clean up” this language.
“The Abortion Control Act does a number of things that are all ideologically driven, politically driven, and have no basis in science all to restrict pregnant people from getting an abortion and making their own health care decisions,” Hosey said.
Cappelletti’s bill also aims to repeal provisions related to abortion 24 or more weeks into the gestational age. Though the question of the viability line in determining policy on abortion is contentious, only 1% of abortions are provided after 21 weeks. Cappelletti, who holds a Master’s in Public Health from Temple University, added that women seeking abortions in the later stages of pregnancy is a result of red tape or severe medical complications.
“We are not imposing any regulations on that, and we want to open it up for people to be able to access the care that they need when they need it without stigma,” Cappelletti said.
State Senator Maria Collett (D-Montgomery County), a co-sponsor of the bill, told the Beacon that the choice to have an abortion is a health care decision between the patient and their provider.
“If she had appendicitis and showed up in the emergency room, we wouldn’t require waiting periods to think about whether or not your appendectomy is removing a part of your body that should remain there,” Collett said. “We allow people to make the healthcare decisions that they need to make based on their assessment of their lives, their health, and their ability to move on with life, no matter what the healthcare challenge was.”
Republicans currently have a 28-22 majority in the PA Senate, and Cappelletti’s bill has zero Republican sponsors. Despite this, Senator Collett sees hope in the bill.
“This is an opportunity for us to send a message to folks in our community who care about this issue – that when you elect Democrats or people that support this issue for you, this is what you get,” Collett said. “It is also meant to put those Republicans in the Senate chamber on notice that this is something that their constituents care about too.”
Senator Cappelletti shared a similar sentiment.
“I think the first reason [we introduced this] is because it is meaningful, it is real, and it is a conversation starter,” Cappelletti said.
