Pennsylvania House votes to expand restrictions on abortion

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: 6ABC / AP

AP By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press
Tuesday, June 21, 2016 11:31PM
HARRISBURG, Pa. --

The state House is giving its approval to new restrictions on elective abortions, and Pennsylvania's governor is threatening a veto if the proposal gets out of the Senate. State representatives voted 132 to 65 on Tuesday for the bill to ban the procedure after 20 weeks, compared to 24 weeks in current law. The bill also would criminalize procedures that cause the deaths of fetuses by removing their body parts.

Supporters in the Republican-majority House say the bill reflects medical advances that make fetuses viable on their own at earlier stages of pregnancy. Opponents say it was pushed through without hearings and is part of an agenda to eventually ban abortion outright.

Read more: http://6abc.com/news/pennsylvania-house-votes-to-expand-restrictions-on-abortion/1395979/

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Short article and I heard a blip on the radio last night.

Looks like the PA GOP is back to business as usual with the ALEC legislation. Fortunately our governor is a Democrat and would veto this (and they don't have enough to override).

[Orrex]

1. Thanks to gerrymandering...

the idiot GOP "majority" isn't going anywhere soon.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. We have 4 years until the 2020 census

And being that it will be a Presidential election year (versus an off-year election like 2010, which was the last census), the potential turnout will be higher and the hope is that the party gets its act together to take at least the state Senate, back.

[Orrex]

4. Hope springs eternal

It would be nice to get a state legislature that reflects the will of the constituency!

[Cosmocat]

6. The senate is mortally republican

The gerrymandering of all three districts, congressional, state house and state senate are the very definition of absurd.

The state senate gerrymandering is even more slanted toward republican's than the house. There is almost no circumstance that could exist for them to lose the senate now, while if you get a really big d v r advantage in a POTUS election the house might flip for a couple cycles.

MIGHT.

As for the census, that is all fine and well, but it does not directly effect the district lines. The only thing it directly alters is the number of congressional seats. While it comes prior to redistricting, in PA it does not effect HOW the redistricting occurs.

What would need to occur to change things here, as in any other state, was a change to the state's redistricting process.

The map gets drawn by a five person Legislative Reapportionment Commission, made up of the majority and minority leaders of the state house and senate, and a fifth selected "legal expert."

We know of course, that republicans are jackass, deranged partisan shitbags who will push the envelop to the max. But, while they do their thing, they have willing, passive partners in this process with the democratic leaders/elders in state government. Yeah, they say all the right things publicly, but I know for a fact, they are brought into the conversations and they get assurances that their districts will remain cozy and safe. You will see some newer, lower ranking Ds get squeezed, but they are the sacrificial lambs.

The other thing is Wolf. I like him, and I like that he is standing up to the assholes. BUT, he is a dead man walking for his reelection, unless whoever the Rs foist up there is a pretty darn bad, and I have a pretty good idea of who it is going to be, and he isn't bad enough to lose.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Well consider that the state redistricting effort

went to court multiple times and the lines had to be redrawn those times to knock down the most egregious gerrymandering, so it's not necessarily a slam-dunk for the GOP when it comes time for another go-around.

But more importantly, the PA State Supreme Court is now Democratically-controlled, along with the lower courts, so there are some different dynamics in play now that can be leveraged in the future if the organization is deft enough.

[Cosmocat]

9. OK

I forget about the court challenges, and this is definitely a good point.

But, that is nibbling around the edges.

You seem knowledgeable enough to know how comically bad the districts in this state are, and any kind of change that will really alter that won't occur with the current set up.

The courts pretty much just can limit the very extremes of gerrymandering moving forward.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. I had read something earlier

where a number of the state House seats were uncontested (GOP). If we truly had a functional state party, they could attempt a "67-county strategy". Of course at this juncture, that is a pipe dream but you have to start somewhere. I think because of the past corruption (e.g., Vince Fumo among others) coming out of the old school machine politics, you end up with people not even wanting to bother to run. Just this last year, I saw several state reps leave their seats and eventually run for and win seats in our (Philly) City Council, which was a bit surprising to me, although it probably shouldn't have been a surprise.

[Cosmocat]

16. our rep is an R

I have been active in local politics, I had my stint of putting myself out for about 8 years and I am done.

Our state rep in an R, and there is no one who is a dem who would run that has a chance at beating him.

There just get a point where someone is going his double digit terms, you run out of people who are willing to run and lose.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. I hear ya

It ain't easy. Most people would rather just try to get through the day-to-day part of living and unless you are really motivated, running for office is not even on a bucket list.

[Grins]

19. Then you better have a Democrat in the White House AND Democrats in the House...

....because the Repukes will try to kill its funding or kill valid sampling models used in the past. They did this in 2010.

[glennward]

10. Thanks to not GOTV and failing to run good challengers. nt

[Orrex]

11. It's more than that, unfortunately

Democrats were caught entirely unprepared for the precisely-targeted campaigns designed to take key seats in state congressional races preceding 2010, so that Republicans were able to secure majorities in a number of states just in time to control the redistricting following the census.

It's not simply that Democrats didn't GOTV; it's that Dems were scooped by a well planned strategy that caught them totally flat-footed, and we're all paying the price.

Even worse, from what I heard last week on NPR's Fresh Air, Democrats are doing very little to prevent this same thing from happening again before the next redistricting occurs. Unresponsiveness and failure to plan by the Democrats--rather than the voters--may doom us to two straight decades of entrenched GOP majorities regardless of the states' actual demographics.

[Ilsa]

2. When detailed ultrasound indicates there might be an anomaly,

Sometimes you have to wait to at least 24 weeks gestation to see if it resolved in utero.

These are the worst six or more weeks of waiting to see if the potential for a severe disability has resolved. Women don't go through 20+ weeks of pregnancy on a whim and just decide one morning that they want an abortion today.

The defects can be pretty severe with long term social, financial, and mental health consequences for the whole family.

[Botany]

5. Old white men telling women what they can do w/their bodies

Why any woman would ever vote GOP I don't know. BTW no doubt these same
"family values" people will cut money to help with the feeding, health care, and
education for the children of the state.

[smirkymonkey]

14. I am so goddamned sick of it I could scream.

And no doubt if they ever got their mistresses pregnant they would force her to get an abortion.

[Botany]

18. I have no doubt that Trump has paid for more then one abortion in his life.

If you believe in a God that is fine, get on with your own bad self but that does not
give you the right to act like a God and tell other people on how to live their life.

[Number9Dream]

8. Suggest cross-posting to the PA forum too

I'll bet my republican rep voted for the new restrictions.

[arithia]

12. "love" how they are justifying the bill with "updates to medical science"

Like redefining viability to 20 weeks will somehow nullify Roe v Wade or change the fact that most abnormalities don't even PRESENT until 20 weeks or later in the pregnancy.

A PennLive article had a great quote on the discussion, courtesy of Planned Parenthood: "At the same time they [legislators] are fast-tracking an abortion ban during an election year, they have bottled up a bill that would provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant women in the workplace in Pennsylvania."

http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/pa_house_passes_bill_setting_n.html#incart_most-comments

I should also note that the woman (Kathy Rapp) who introduced this bill is the same one who tried to get safety zones around abortion clinics removed earlier this year. Not only does she not want you getting that medically necessary abortion, ladies, she doesn't want you to be able to make it into the door without some "pro-life" bully accosting you all the way from your car to the door.


Our budget is a mess. Our schools are a mess. Our roads and infrastructure are crumbling- quite literally, the state capitol is turning into one giant sinkhole. Once again, we are f*cking with this pro-birth bullsh*t in an election year instead of taking care of business.

Give em Hell, Gov Wolf.

[dembotoz]

15. wanna tell me again how the gop is dead?