PA Senate Committee Revives Abortion Bill
by Tony Romeo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Voting along party lines, a bill to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy has cleared its first hurdle in the new session of the Pennsylvania legislature.
Governor Wolf is again promising to veto the bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday.
Current Pennsylvania law bans most abortions after 24 weeks. But suburban Philadelphia Republican Stewart Greenleaf, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says the science of the issue has changed.
"That has resulted in more and more children being viable before 24 weeks," he said.
But Lehigh Valley Democrat Lisa Boscola lashed out at what she called a "cookie-cutter" approach to something very serious.
"These are heartbreaking decisions being made, sometimes about the health of the mother, sometimes about the life of the mother," she said.
Boscola also criticized a provision that bans what the bill refers to as "dismemberment abortion."
Democrats cried foul over a lack of hearings on the bill, but Republicans pointed out that the bill was considered in the legislature's previous two-year session.
