Pennsylvania on Monday became the 19th state to introduce a “heartbeat” bill, banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat has been detected.
The Republican-led state legislature introduced the bill requiring all doctors to determine if a fetal heartbeat could be detected before performing an abortion. If a doctor found a heartbeat, a woman could only have an abortion if her health was at risk. Republicans Sen. Doug Mastriano and Rep. Stephanie Borowicz made good on their promise to introduce the legislation they said will take on Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion.
“There’s something really wrong here,” Mastriano said, according to Fox 43. “Something nefarious is going on. We turn our backs on the most vulnerable; those who don’t have a voice. And let them be massacred in the womb. We’re talking about the stats of the federal government 60 million abortions since Roe v. Wade was legalized in the ’70s.”
“When you hear a baby’s heartbeat, everything changes,” Borowicz told reporters, according to Penn Live. “If you can be declared dead when the heart stops, why not declared alive when it starts?”
Currently, state law permits abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Some questioned if the bill’s restrictions went too far as many women do not know they are pregnant until the six to eight week time frame when a heart starts beating. – READ MORE