American voters have reached a fork in the road with November’s election, Senator Casey told dozens of his supporters in Bucks County on Saturday. One path leads to Republicans capturing the White House and Senate and a likely draconian nationwide abortion ban, while the other path, which he and other Democrats are pushing forward, includes passing the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), federal legislation which protects the right to provide and access abortion care.
Casey was the keynote speaker for a reproductive rights panel at Crossing Vineyards and Winery in Wrightstown hosted by Red Wine and Blue, where he was joined by the group’s State Director Ronna Dewey and Dr. Jessica Klemens, an OBGYN in Montgomery County. Casey faces anti-choice Republican Dave McCormick in a very consequential election for the future of women’s rights and reproductive freedom in the U.S.
“I’m concerned that as much of a setback for women’s rights as Dobbs was, and the overturning of a 49-year right so a daughter or granddaughter has less rights than her mother or grandmother, it could go in an even more extreme direction with this presidential ticket coming in and having a senate majority,” said Casey. “If my opponent were to win, he would be part of a MAGA majority, which I don’t think many Americans support. So I think the more people know about the differences, the better we are going to do.”
The event, which lasted a little over a half hour, was dedicated to informing voters on the importance of protecting abortion rights and other reproductive rights and the real life impact it has for women. Klemens shared stories of women who are traveling to Pennsylvania from states that have banned abortions from receiving the care they need and also talked about younger patients who are asking about getting procedures to prevent pregnancies.
“I have never in 20 years of practice had this many young folks in their 20s asking for sterilization,” said Klemens. “And they’ll tell me things like ‘Well, I go to college in a state where there is a six-week ban, and if I get pregnant, I don’t know what I’m going to do. What if I have a complication?’ Or ‘I may have a chronic medical condition and I have been told I won’t survive a pregnancy.’ Or a multitude of reasons.”
One attendee said that she found the event very informative, but especially found Klemens’ testimonies about young patients asking about sterilization deeply troubling, and not something women should have to consider in 2024.
Later in the panel, Casey discussed the recent vote for the Senate to hear the Right to Contraception Act.
“I thought it was, for the country, a clarifying moment, where in separate weeks we had a vote on the Right to Contraception Act and then a separate vote on Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s bill on IVF. Separate votes, separate weeks. And it was clarifying because every senate Republican except two voted no on both,” said Casey. “And remember what they were voting on. They were not voting on the bill. All they were voting on was whether or not to debate the bill.”
Lorrie Topolin, who lives in New Hope, had many good things to say about the event. “The topic was limited, and it wasn’t all over the place, so I kind of liked that because this is probably the most important issue coming up.”
Another policy that Topolin said was an important issue to her in the upcoming election was book banning. While Casey’s opponent, David McCormick, has not expressed his stance on this issue, in May he was a keynote speaker at a Moms for Liberty event, a group that has helped ban books in multiple school districts across the state.
“It’s important for me as a candidate to have these discussions with voters and with folks who are right in the middle of this,” said Casey. “To hear Dr. Klemens describe the real-world implications of this post-Dobbs world puts into sharp contrast what I stand for and what my opponent stands for. So it does give people a sense of what is at stake.”
READ: Abortion Bans Are Changing What it Means to Be Young in America
“Having Senator Casey here sharing what’s going on in Washington is extremely important and informative,” said Dewey. “So many people do not know what is at stake. They have heard about the Dobbs decision, especially in Pennsylvania, they say, ‘Well that doesn’t affect me.’”
When McCormick ran in the 2022 Senate primary, which he lost to New Jersey’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, McCormick said in a debate, “I believe in the very rare instances there should be exceptions for the life of the mother.” McCormick, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, has also staunchly supported the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade 49-year protection of the constitutional right to an abortion.
