A lawmaker from Montgomery County is circulating a request to colleagues to back repeal of a requirement that a married woman seeking an abortion in Pennsylvania notify her spouse.
In a preliminary description of the upcoming bill, state Representative Liz Hanbidge (D-Blue Bell) bemoaned last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide. Hanbidge insisted that Pennsylvania’s founding principles of freedom and individual sovereignty should empower people to kill unborn life without constraint.
In 1989, Pennsylvania enacted its Abortion Control Act which modestly restricts the practice of abortion and includes a stipulation that “no physician shall perform an abortion on a married woman… unless… she has notified her spouse that she is about to undergo an abortion.” The 1992 Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which affirmed Roe, declared this provision unconstitutional. It has not since been enforced even after Dobbs given that Pennsylvania’s governor and attorney general both support abortion on demand.
“The spousal notification requirement is… likely to prevent a significant number of women from obtaining an abortion,” Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter wrote in Planned Parenthood’s controlling plurality opinion. “It does not merely make abortions a little more difficult or expensive to obtain; for many women, it will impose a substantial obstacle.”
Hanbidge stated she wants to guarantee that marital notice is never required regardless of which party runs the state’s law-enforcement agencies.
“Women have the sole responsibility to decide what occurs with their bodies, and no one — not even a spouse — has the right to unilaterally make decisions for their health without undue burden,” she wrote. “Pennsylvania was founded on the ideals of individual liberty and freedom from oppression. It is time we update our laws to reflect modern times and remove this antiquated requirement that is not in effect.”
Spousal-notification repeal is the second pro-abortion measure Hanbidge has announced she plans to sponsor in the new legislative session. The first, filed days after the term began last month and cosponsored with Representative Danielle Friel Otten (D-Exton), is an amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution that would codify the right to abortion.
Republicans have meanwhile been pushing for an amendment clarifying that the state Constitution bestows no right to an abortion and that legislators are free to restrict it if they think limitations are necessary. The possibility that either party will change the law to either further protect or endanger unborn life in the near future, however, looks slim. Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro is soon to become governor and will preside over a legislature controlled by Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate, making stalemates nearly inevitable for any abortion-related bills.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Liz Hanbidge” by Rep. Liz Hanbidge. Background Photo “Pregnant Couple” by Gaurav Ranjitkar.
