LTE: Read between the lines

Editor, Gettysburg Times,

Don’t believe everything you hear. There’s a lot of disinformation out there, some of it coming from our elected representatives.

Judy Ward, a state senator who represents parts of Franklin, Cumberland, Fulton, Huntingdon and Cambria counties, wrote a column in the Gettysburg Times claiming to correct “the most egregious… falsehoods circulating” about Senate Bill 106, the proposed constitutional amendments on abortion that the Republicans sprung in the legislature’s last hour. Her claims about the amendment are deceptive and disingenuous. Let’s set the record straight.

Senator Ward says the claims by many Pennsylvanians that the amendment could result in an abortion ban and that it would put IVF (in vitro fertilization) at risk or force women to carry ectopic pregnancies to term are untrue. According to Ward, “Pennsylvanians will continue to have a statutory right to an abortion” and that “Medicaid will continue to cover …rape or incest … IVF, ectopic pregnancies, and that D&C procedures would be allowed under the same rules that exist today.”

But then Ward lets slip that the real purpose of the amendment is to put “policymaking … exactly where it belongs … through their elected officials.” Ward conveniently “forgets” to mention that this proposal would take away a right that is now enshrined in the Pennsylvania Constitution – a constitutional right – and instead place it in the hands of representatives who hold extreme anti-abortion positions that most Pennsylvanians don’t support.

This is far from the status quo. Ward doesn’t mention that the Legislative GOP makes no secret that the whole purpose of this constitutional amendment is to allow the legislature to enact whatever abortion restrictions it wants. Ward’s promise that Medicaid funding, IVF, and all those other procedures will continue “under the same rules” isn’t true; she knows very well that under the amendment the legislature could do anything up to making it a felony to have an abortion and banning out-of-state travel. Inevitably, Pennsylvania would be added to the list of states where abortions are illegal, even in cases of rape, incest, and safety of the mother. Anti-abortion advocates in the legislature could, on their whim, subject women and their health care providers to prosecution.

Pennsylvanians want to hold onto their constitutional rights. We don’t need deceptive descriptions like senator Ward’s op-ed.

Lois Lembo,
Gettysburg