Shapiro teams up with health care workers
Touts abortion message; Mastriano says economy a bigger issue
As state Democrats continue to home in on the overturning of Roe v. Wade as an electoral galvanizer ahead of November’s midterms, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the party’s nominee for governor, teamed up with a group of health care professionals on Wednesday to label his candidacy the last line of defense against the impulses of rights-infringing Republicans.
With the Supreme Court leaving the fate of abortion rights up to the states, Democrats have warned — for five straight days since Roe was overturned — that abortion would be banned in Pennsylvania if state Sen. Doug Mastriano wins the governor’s race and becomes the final leg of a GOP government trifecta.
Mr. Shapiro, surrounded by a half-dozen health care professionals, said doctors and nurses shouldn’t have to perform health care with one arm tied behind their backs, and should be able to use their expertise to inform patients of the best decision for their livelihoods. The GOP-controlled Legislature will put a bill on the governor’s desk to ban abortions, Mr. Shapiro said — and Mr. Mastriano would sign it.
“Let me tell you something. It is not freedom to tell a woman what she can do and not do with her body,” Mr. Shapiro said, poking at Mr. Mastriano’s affinity, in his campaign, for “freedom.” “That’s not freedom … to tell a family under what terms and when they’re allowed to have children, that’s not freedom.”
To counter the Democrats’ focus on abortion rights, Mr. Mastriano, who favors a ban on abortion six weeks into a pregnancy, told NewsMax this week that although the Roe decision may “stir [ Mr.
Shapiro’s] base” and give him a bump in the polls, voters are ultimately worried about other things.
“The reality is, people are going to vote the economy, and the economy is looking pretty bad nationwide and especially in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Mastriano said.
Mr. Mastriano’s wife, Rebecca, in a recent livestream on Facebook, accused Democrats of trying to distract voters from inflation, rising costs, cancel culture and censorship, among other things. Meanwhile, Mr. Mastriano is “100% for women’s rights. He supports a women’s right to be born. He supports a woman’s right to have a say in their child’s education. He supports a woman’s right to have access to baby formula and to affordable food at the stores for their family,” she said.
The health care professionals, gathered with Mr. Shapiro in Philadelphia, warned that if abortion were banned in Pennsylvania, people would have to travel out of state or give birth — which can be dangerous. Pennsylvania is already facing a maternal mortality crisis, affecting Black women disproportionately — and an abortion ban would make it worse, they said.
Dr. Sarah Gutman, a complex family planning physician who said she provides life-saving abortion care for patients, spoke about some of her patients who learned about a devastating fetal diagnosis and had to end a pregnancy they desperately wanted to create.
“The people in front of me have made a deeply personal decision about their reproductive health care,” Ms. Gutman said of her patients. “My patients are people you know. They’re often already parents and need to focus on their existing children. Some cannot continue pregnancy because of their own health. Some have become pregnant through rape.”
Mr. Mastriano does not support exceptions for rape, incest or life of the mother.