Constitutional amendment to protect taxpayers from paying for abortion passes PA Senate
HARRISBURG, PA - Today, the PA state Senate passed a constitutional amendment that would maintain the status quo in Pennsylvania that it is up to the people through their state legislators, not the courts, to decide how best to regulate abortion and protect women’s health.
It does not affect the statutory right to abortion created by the people’s representatives, it simply prevents our state supreme court from stripping away rights of the people by forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions by inventing a constitutional right to abortion.
“Pennsylvanians agree that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for the taking of a human life through abortion,” said Michael Geer, President of Pennsylvania Family Institute. “Just as the U.S. Supreme Court in the overturn of Roe and Casey ruled that the authority to craft abortion policies should be given ‘to the people and their elected representatives,’ this amendment preserves the rights of the people through their representatives to make these decisions rather than Pennsylvania’s courts.”
The abortion industry in Pennsylvania is attempting to circumvent the legislative process through a lawsuit aimed at inventing a right to an abortion in our state constitution. This suit is currently before the state supreme court and may result in taxpayer funded abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. This amendment protects our checks and balances.
“This amendment is essential for protecting Pennsylvania taxpayers. We should never be forced to pay for elective abortions,” says Alexis Sneller, Communications and Policy Officer at the Pennsylvania Family Institute. “This amendment gives Pennsylvanians a voice.”
We applaud Senator Judy Ward (R - Blair
County) as prime sponsor of this amendment and thank her for her strong leadership in helping to move this critical legislation forward.
This amendment in no way affects medical care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancy care, or contraception. In fact, Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act treats those differently than abortion, because those do not involve the purposeful destruction of a human life as is the case with an elective abortion.
As this amendment simply states:
This Constitution does not grant the right to taxpayer-funded abortion or any other right relating to abortion.
This amendment must now be passed by the PA House. As a constitutional amendment, it cannot be vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf. The amendment must be voted on a second time in the next legislative session, which begins next year in 2023, and then would go to a referendum vote by Pennsylvania citizens.