“Area legislators have mixed views on abortion-limiting SB3”
Delaware County Daily Times
December 12, 2017
by Kathleen Carey
On Tuesday, state representatives voted in the Pennsylvania House, mostly along party lines, to pass Senate Bill 3, legislation regarding abortion time limits that some call among the most extreme in the country and others say puts Pennsylvania in line with the standards of much of the rest of the world.
SB3 prohibits abortions after 20 weeks with no exceptions for rape, incest or fetal abnormalities, as well as a procedure called a dilation and evacuation. Opponents of the bill spoke to how it turns doctors who perform dilation and evacuation into criminals, does not include the exceptions and has not had a public hearing. Supporters of the bill say that dilation and evacuation, which is referred to as “dismemberment abortion” by its critics, is only permitted in six other countries and that it’s a savage process.
The legislation is opposed by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, the Pennsylvania Medical Society and the Pennsylvania section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
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tate Rep. Leanne Krueger-Braneky, D-161, of Swarthmore, made a motion Monday to have SB3 recommitted to the House Health Committee but was unable to garner the needed support to do so. Her concern was the lack of public hearings to consider professional medical opinion in the debate.
In February, she hosted a listening session at Swarthmore College that was attended by Wolf and in which several women offered their stories about late-term abortions, some from personal points of view, others from professional perspectives.
On Tuesday, she said she would repeat those stories.
“I will be telling their stories on the House floor because their voices need to be heard,” she said. “This is the most extreme ban in the country … It puts doctors in jail.”