Just a year ago, most people didn’t give much thought to state constitutions and the rights they protect.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate our federal right to abortion changed everything by highlighting the importance of safeguarding reproductive autonomy rights enshrined in state constitutions.
Law360 just highlighted our case Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (ARHC v. PA DHS) as a critical post-Roe legal battle centered on state constitutional protections.
Represented by attorneys from the Women’s Law Project, attorney David S. Cohen, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a group of Pennsylvania abortion providers filed a state lawsuit challenging the state statute that bans abortion coverage through the Pennsylvania Medicaid program. We filed it in 2019 having known for a long time that the battle for reproductive rights and freedom is in the states.
The central claims of Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services are that the state’s Medicaid abortion coverage ban violates the Equal Rights Amendment and equal protection provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Critically, plaintiffs also requested that the court declare that abortion is a fundamental right under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
We argued this case before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania last October. There is no deadline for when the Court must issue a ruling, so it can come at any time.
As WLP interim co-executive director Amal Bass told Law360, “This is a case about equality and the ability for people with reproductive capacity commonly associated with women to decide their futures.”
Read the Law360 story here.
Women’s Law Project is a non-profit 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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