Abortion activists in Pennsylvania are putting up a fight against a new bill to ban painful late-term abortions and gruesome dismemberment abortion procedures in the state.
Pennsylvania House Bill 1948, sponsored by state Rep. Kathy Rapp, would ban brutal dismemberment abortions that tear unborn babies limb from limb and prohibit abortions after 20 weeks when unborn babies can feel pain.
A state House committee passed the bill last week, but pro-abortion legislators have been trying to block the bill from a full vote in the House. On Monday, abortion activists even brought in some big names – Gov. Tom Wolf and Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards – for a press conference opposing the bill.
“This legislation would be a step back for women,” Wolf said at the press conference. “This legislation would be a huge step back for Pennsylvania. If this legislation reaches my desk, I will veto it.”
The announcement comes as no surprise from the pro-abortion governor. Wolf has close ties to Planned Parenthood and recently appointed one of its board members as his chief of staff. He also volunteered and donated to the abortion business and received strong support from the abortion giant during his campaign for governor.
On its blog Monday, the Pennsylvania Family Institute said the Planned Parenthood CEO’s presence at the state capital signals an urgency for Pennsylvanians to call their state Representatives in support of the bill.
Families with babies born prematurely also are speaking up in support of the pro-life bill. The Dreistadt family said their 12-year-old son Will was born weighing just over 1 pound. He was so small that his parents’ wedding rings could fit around his arm. Despite a long hospital stay and six surgeries, the western Pennsylvania boy now is thriving.
“In PA, babies at the age of Will’s birth are able to be aborted even though they can survive outside the womb,” his parents Jason and Tammy said. “So many advancements in technology have been made since the writing of current Pennsylvania abortion laws, and even in the 12 years since Will was born! We can now even perform surgeries on unborn children.”
Rapp, the lead sponsor of the bill, pointed out that some unborn babies are being aborted in Pennsylvania while others at the same stage of pregnancy are being saved with new life-saving surgical procedures at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“In the state that’s leading the way for dramatic, life-preserving surgeries for the smallest lives, we’re going to end the inhumane practice of dismemberment abortions, which tears a living human being to pieces,” Rapp said in a new video message about the legislation. “We can do better than that, and Pennsylvania’s women and girls deserve better.”
Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, said about 1,550 babies are killed in Pennsylvania every year in dismemberment abortions.
“The description sounds ghastly, uncivilized, and definitely inhumane. Yet it is a practice that takes place each year in Pennsylvania, killing an estimated 1,550 babies,” Gallagher said.
A handful of states also have passed dismemberment abortion bans, which are the brainchild of the National Right to Life Committee.
The bill also is modeled, in part, after the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which has become law in 12 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
ACTION: If you are a resident of Pennsylvania, call your state representative and urge him or her to support House Bill 1948. You can find your state representative here: https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/#address . Also, contact Governor Wolf here.
