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HARRISBURG, May 26, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Legislation to protect the vast majority of babies from abortion cleared the House Health Committee of the Pennsylvania legislature Tuesday, eliciting a veto threat from Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.
Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA reports that one of the bills would effectively ban abortion if a preborn baby has a detectable heartbeat (as early as six weeks), with exceptions only for medical threats to the mother, and the other would ban abortions sought specifically because a baby was diagnosed with Down syndrome.
“Once again, members are working to pass anti-choice legislation that would undermine the doctor-patient relationship and limit an individual’s right to decide what happens to their body – including re-running appalling bills that I have vetoed in the past,” Wolf responded. “I will veto any anti-choice legislation that lands on my desk.”
Heartbeat laws, which take effect well before the Supreme Court’s “fetal viability” threshold, are generally not expected to ban abortion in the near term, because they are consistently enjoined by lawsuits from the abortion industry. Instead, states typically enact them in hopes of provoking a legal battle that would hopefully reach the nation’s highest court and instigate a review of Roe v. Wade, thereby potentially overturning decades of pro-abortion legal precedent and freeing the states to set their own abortion laws.
Such a case, which pro-lifers hope the Court’s upcoming hearing about Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban will turn out to be, would present the biggest test yet of former President Donald Trump’s three appointees to the Court, and whether they will help comprise the majority needed to finally overturn Roe.
Meanwhile, it is a common practice around the world to abort preborn children specifically because of a Down’s diagnosis; the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute estimates that abortion reduces the Down’s community in the United States by 30% – despite research finding that 99% of people with Down syndrome described themselves as “happy,” and only 4% of parents with children with Down’s expressed regret about having their children.
Regardless, Republicans’ current majorities in the Pennsylvania Legislature are insufficient to deliver the two-thirds votes necessary to override the governor’s veto.