Candidate: Murder charges should apply in abortions
Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator who is the GOP nominee for governor, said in 2019 that women who violated his proposed abortion ban should be charged with murder.
The comment, first resurfaced Tuesday by NBC News, is the latest development in the high-profile and contentious race for Pennsylvania governor, which has seen Mastriano — who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump in May — appeal to hard-right voters with a mix of Christian nationalism, stop-the-steal election denialism, and support for a total abortion ban.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade, the issue of abortion has upended the mid-terms, energizing the Democratic base and throwing into question what was previously widely expected to be a GOP landslide. Under Mastriano, Pennsylvania could become the latest in over a dozen US states to entirely or largely outlaw abortions.
In a 2019 interview with Pennsylvania radio station WITF, Mastriano spoke about a bill he sponsored in the state legislature that would have outlawed abortion as soon as cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy.
Pennsylvania Senate Bill 912 would have made significantly harsher existing legislation in the state, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks — and beyond in cases where the mother’s life and health would be demonstrably endangered otherwise.
But in the interview, Mastriano was asked whether a woman who had an abortion 10 weeks into a pregnancy would be charged with murder under his proposed measure.
“OK, let’s go back to the basic question there,” Mastriano responded. “Is that a human being? Is that a little boy or girl? If it is, it deserves equal protection under the law.”
The interviewer asked Mastriano if he was saying that a woman who underwent an abortion at 10 weeks gestation should be charged with murder.
“Yes, I am,” Mastriano replied.
Pennsylvania is a purple state with a Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, and a Republican-controlled state legislature.
Mastriano’s opponent in November’s race, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, has pitched himself as the last line of defense for Pennsylvanians’ abortion rights.
In September of last year, he joined a coalition of 24 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of the Department of Justice’s challenge to a proposed six-week abortion ban in Texas. In May, Shapiro told The New York Times: “The legislature is going to put a bill on the desk of the next governor to ban abortion. Every one of my opponents would sign it into law, and I would veto it.”
Meanwhile, Mastriano is a controversial figure in the state. He has been accused of Islamophobic comments, been photographed wearing a Confederate uniform, and was on the US Capitol grounds on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by a pro-Trump mob.