Pennsylvania Pro-Life Advocates Oppose Bill Promoting Morning After Pill 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 19, 2007
Harrisburg, PA (LifeNews.com) — Pro-life advocates in Pennsylvania are working to defeat a bill that would require health care facilities to promote the morning after pill to women who are victims of rape. They say the bill also repeals part of a Pennsylvania law that limits abortions and redefines the definition of birth in a way that could undermine pro-life protections.
Pro-life groups were successful in getting enough phone calls to the statehouse yesterday so the measure, H.B. 288, was pulled from consideration. However, the bill is back on the docket for today.
Peg Luksik, director of Public Affairs for the Pro-Life Coalition of Pennsylvania, is one of the leading activists opposing the legislation. She spoke with the Evening Bulletin newspaper about her concerns.
"This bill is bad for Pennsylvania on a couple of levels," she said, adding that it would repeal parts of the Abortion Control Act, which the legislature put in place 16 years ago and was mostly upheld by the Supreme Court in 1992.
"The Abortion Control Act that passed 16 years ago held that life began at the moment of conception. If this bill passes, it would redefine when life begins, making it the moment of implantation, not conception," Luksik added.
But Luksik said her group is most concerned about the requirement that health facilities dispense the Plan B drug to rape victims when the pills can cause abortions in some circumstances.
"A lot of hospitals in Pennsylvania, who are not affiliated to a particular religion, have chosen not to provide abortion services," Luksik told the newspaper. She said she worries about religious and private hospitals that morally oppose the drugs being forced to give them out.
Luksik also said lawmakers are making a wrong assumption that women who are victims of sexual abuse aren’t getting good medical treatment.
"There has been no evidence presented that rape victims are not being cared for adequately," stated Luksik. "There has been no testimony, no documentation to support the contrary."
