Chair of the Health Committee in the Pennsylvania House Rep. Kathy Rapp, also chair of the Pro-life Caucus, at last week’s anti-abortion hearings in Pennsylvania
Instead of working to protect pregnant workers from COVID-19 or addressing the maternal mortality crisis, Pennsylvania House Health Committee chair Rep. Rapp is hosting a series of public hearings designed to advance abortion restrictions experts say will increase maternal mortality.
This morning’s hearings were an outrageous spectacle. Many of the anti-choice lawmakers refused to use medical language and insisted instead on using violent, anti-abortion talking-point phrases that have galvanized domestic terrorists who have targeted physicians, staff, and patients of comprehensive reproductive healthcare facilities.
Several of the all-white Republican majority offensively co-opted language of the Black liberation movement to advance the anti-abortion agenda.
At one point, Rep. Aaron Bernstine asked a testifying physician if she would ask patients seeking abortion care to give birth and then give him the baby.
Last year, Bernstine shared videos he took of himself encouraging his 5-year-old son to smoke a cigar, to refer to women he’d “chase” as “Cadillac p*ssy,” and to play a verbal game wherein he demanded his 5-year-old son choose whether he’d have sex with, marry, or kill Dolly Parton.
This disgusting episode was not the only shocking aspect of today’s spectacle. Today’s hearing was in large part an attempt for anti-choice lawmakers to praise crisis pregnancy centers, the rapidly growing network of anti-abortion centers with the goal of intercepting low-income pregnant women before they access healthcare in order to prevent them from accessing abortion.
Pennsylvania has been directly funding a chain of crisis pregnancy centers called Real Alternatives since the 1990s. To date, Real Alternatives has received more than $100 million in public money. Pennsylvania even siphons TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) money earmarked for low-income families into the six-figure salaries of their executives.
Why would Pennsylvania’s anti-choice lawmakers hold hearings on CPCs and then studiously not invite anyone related to the program the state funds to testify? They didn’t even invite anyone affiliated with any of the 28 CPCs funded by the people of Pennsylvania.
Perhaps Real Alternatives does not want to be asked about the many allegations regarding wasting and skimming outlined in this public complaint and other investigations.
Instead, Rep. Rapp invited the executive director of Women’s Choice Network in Pittsburgh, an organization that promotes unregulated medical experimentation on vulnerable pregnant people anti-abortion activists call “abortion pill reversal,” a claim the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists asserts “are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards.”
Please note this CPC posts false information regarding the rights of Pennsylvania minors to access abortion care. Pennsylvania minors can seek permission to obtain an abortion without a parent’s approval through a process called judicial bypass. Learn more about judicial bypass and how we may be able to help you here.
We also learned that this CPC is apparently dispensing sexual and reproductive health information to children in Pennsylvania schools. This renegade sex ed is concerning given that Pennsylvania does not mandate evidence-based sexual health education and the person testifying on behalf of the CPC repeatedly used non-medical terminology.
Finally, despite many vocal claims about caring for both fetuses and the people carrying them, not one of the self-identified “pro-life” lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House Health Committee has sponsored the PA Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (House Bill 990).
HB 990 would enable working pregnant Pennsylvanians to protect themselves from COVID-19 and reduce miscarriages, reduce fetal injuries from physical labor, and prevent pregnant Pennsylvanians from having to choose between their job and the health of their pregnancy.
Please contact majority (Republican) members of the PA House Health Committee to urge them to sponsor and support the PA Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (HB 990).
Thank you to Dr. Sarah Gutman and Melissa Reed for providing illuminating testimony on the everyday struggle of Pennsylvanians seeking access to comprehensive reproductive health care without stigma or shame.
Women’s Law Project is a public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing and defending the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond.
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