Update and Additional Information
We invite anyone who can make it to Harrisburg for some citizen lobbying, and a rally on 4/29 (see attached flyer). The lobbying will start whenever you can get there. And the rally will address the press/media on the Capital steps at 1pm. The focus of the rally is passage of HB 1762.We are approaching the end of the current legislative session in Harrisburg, with great hope and optimism. Over the past few months, some groundwork has been laid with the help of Pro-Life legislators and leaders from across the state. Specifically, three areas offer some opportunity.
- HB 1762 - Admitting Privileges. This bill would restrict abortionists without admitting privileges from committing abortions in Pennsylvania. Kermit Gosnell had lost his admitting privileges years before being put out of business - resulting in multiple cases of malpractice, many injured women, deaths of several mothers – and hundreds of murdered babies who had been born alive.
- Family Planning Funds - These have been separated, finally. Now there are the contraceptive funds, and the abortion alternatives funds. However, these are no longer "equal". Abortion Alternatives money has been cut by 15%, while the Contraceptive funds have tripled to more than $30 million per year! No data hints that there is a single benefit from this explosion in contraceptive spending. Out of wedlock births are increasing every year. STDs are at epidemic levels. Yet more of our tax money is shoveled into the accounts of Planned Parenthood and their allies. We are hoping to eliminate - or at least cut back these funds - and send a larger share to Abortion Alternatives.
- Enforcement of Abortion Control Act measures. A number of regulations are regularly violated by abortion providers. Currently, the local DAs are charged with enforcement for these rules. But most abortion centers are located in urban areas, with pro-abortion DAs, who have no interest in enforcing this law. As a result, the 24 hour informed consent consultation - which requires a one-on-one, face to face meeting between a physician and patient - is regularly done with telephone recordings, video presentations to groups of women, or other unlawful approaches. Other safety measures may also be overlooked. And, the reporting of rape against little girls - aged 11, 12, or 13 years - is not done at all, as is required. Our hope is that, by assigning a department of state agency, like the Department of Health, with the responsibility to enforce the Abortion Control Act, these life-saving measures can be fully put into effect.
Planned
Parenthood will also be lobbying on the same day, and so we would like our
numbers to match or exceed the 50-60 people that they will bring. Every
pro-lifer is worth infinitely more than the whole contingent of PP pro-aborts.
So, please do what you can to support our effort. We need your presence, and we
also need your prayers.
[Excerpt
from great Eagle Forum article by Phyllis Shaffly...]
On
Admitting Privileges -
"On
Thursday, March 27, an all-women panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit rendered a stunning verdict against abortion clinics by upholding
all significant parts of the pro-life bill (HB 2) that passed in a Texas special
legislative session last summer.
This law sensibly prohibits abortion unless
the abortionist has hospital privileges within 30 miles of the abortion, so
that he can remain available to handle any complications he causes. On no other
major medical operation does the surgeon avoid helping on complications, as abortion
providers often have been doing.
The business model of the abortion industry
has been to shift the costs of complications onto hospitals, taxpayers, and
even pro-life physicians. The victims of abortion who have serious complications
typically end up in emergency rooms where the abortionist is nowhere to be
found.
If
Pennsylvania had a similar law in effect, as was urged there for years, then
Kermit Gosnell would not have been able to perpetrate his horrific acts in
Philadelphia. This 30-mile rule is protective of women against unsafe medical
practices such as back-alley style abortions, and those who side against these
protections for women cannot call themselves pro-women."
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