Tara Murtha is a writer and also serves as associate director of strategic communications at the Women’s Law Project, Pennsylvania’s only public-interest law center devoted to the rights of women and girls.
The abortion divide is between people who need and deserve abortion access and the well-funded movement colluding with lawmakers to push it out of reach.
Anti-choice legislators in Pennsylvania recently pulled out all the stops when debating a bill that would be one of the nation's harshest abortion laws if passed. But in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling, other state lawmakers are trying to stop that bill and change existing policy.
While pleased that they may no longer have to refer to Pennsylvania as “the island of the uninsured,” advocates still have serious concerns with the Healthy PA plan.
Currently, Pennsylvania has two enacted buffer zones, in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, and a proposed bill to establish buffer zones across the state. But like the legal fate of buffer zones in the country following the McCullen decision, the bill remains "in limbo."
The state's latest government mandate on doctor's office communications requires doctors to read an as-yet-unwritten script to pregnant patients after delivering the diagnosis of prenatal Down syndrome.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has branded himself as willing to risk almost anything to work against the Affordable Care Act. It will be interesting to see if that includes a second term.
The Pennsylvania Women’s Health Caucus is poised to celebrate its first legislative victory: On Wednesday, the state house passed a law criminalizing “revenge porn.”
Even with a disastrous deficit of $1.4 billion, the proposed 2014-15 Pennsylvania budget is pouring more money into an anti-choice crisis pregnancy center network that recently made headlines for "failing to see a single client" in another state, despite a significant government contract there.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health recently asked Planned Parenthood facilities in the state to submit transfer agreement and admitting privileges information, even though the state currently does not require clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. A spokesperson said a department employee was acting on his or her own.
A bill that would amend Pennsylvania law to tighten—but not close—a loophole enabling rapist-fathers to obtain custody and visitation rights over a child conceived in rape unanimously passed the Pennsylvania house.
![[Photo: Women's Center volunteers safely escort out a patient seeking an abortion procedure.]](https://rewirenewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/abortion-divide_1-800x533.jpg)
