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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | January 22, 2024 10:49 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Kristine C. Howard |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Reproductive Freedom Act |
| Abortion rights are under attack. Following 2022’s U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision, abortion is now illegal in many states, and while abortion remains legal and safe here in Pennsylvania, it is by no means easily accessible. In fact, a law called “The Abortion Control Act” is the only thing keeping abortion legal in PA. “The Abortion Control Act,” while allowing abortion to 24 weeks, places numerous restrictions on the procedure, restrictions that the Supreme Court ruled were acceptable so long as they do not cause “undue burden” in 1992’s landmark Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision. The only provision that the Casey court found to meet that standard was the Act’s requirement that a married woman had to notify her spouse about the procedure. However, the Act’s 24-hour waiting period, parental notifications, restrictions on who may perform abortions and under what conditions, were all considered to not be “undue burdens.” By making abortion expensive, inconvenient, and stigmatized, and by purposefully failing to prevent discrimination against abortion providers, this law became the playbook for other states looking to chip away at abortion rights. And that playbook has been successful – in many states, abortion was already inaccessible prior to Dobbs. Even here in Pennsylvania, touted as a haven, we only have twenty operational clinics in a state of nearly 13 million people. This is an unfairly burdensome and discriminatory legal regime. It is well past time we fixed Pennsylvania’s embarrassing contribution to the national legal landscape of abortion, and for that reason I previously introduced HB428, the Bodily Autonomy Act. It is a good bill, but I knew it could be improved, and after receiving substantial stakeholder feedback over the past year, I have substantially revised the legislation and plan to reintroduce it as the Reproductive Freedom Act of 2024. This new version of the legislation repeals the great bulk of the Abortion Control Act and replaces it with a new legal framework aimed at treating abortion as health care, with an emphasis on protecting patients’ independence and privacy. With a 6-3 anti-choice majority on the United States Supreme Court , we cannot afford to pretend that the status quo of abortion rights is acceptable. Pennsylvania really is the keystone, and we must ensure our rights are robust and wide-ranging, so that other states may follow our lead as they unfortunately did with the Abortion Control Act. Please join me in taking this step towards ensuring a more secure future for reproductive rights and a guarantee that all Pennsylvanians, and any of our neighbors that need care in Pennsylvania, will continue to have the freedom to choose. |
Introduced as HB2304