Does "Pro-Getting Elected" Outweigh "Pro-Life" for PA Legislative Republicans?

Prepare to have your assumptions about Pennsylvania's stance on abortion legislation challenged. As we navigate the tumultuous waters of the Keystone State's political landscape, we spotlight a bill proposed by Representative Melissa Shusterman that could revolutionize abortion coverage through the state's Health Insurance Exchange. Despite the preconceived notions of a Republican majority traditionally leaning pro-life, the majority of the 23 pieces of legislation we discuss actually lean toward expanding abortion rights, signaling a shift that demands attention.

We delve into the heart of the matter, dissecting the political strategies at play amidst the fallout from the Dobbs decision. With only a handful of anti-abortion bills on the table, and those notably less severe than anticipated, we speculate on a potential strategic pivot within the GOP. The political divide on abortion legislation has never been more intriguing, and this episode promises a candid look at the undercurrents shaping Pennsylvania's legislative future, as well as the role of public opinion in shaping policy. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on these developments that are set to leave an indelible mark on the state's approach to reproductive rights.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:31

Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania love to talk about being pro-life, except when it comes time to actually make laws. Hello and welcome to the Keystone Recording Podcast from Monday, march 18, 2024. I'm your host, jesse White. The State House and Senate are back in session today, which I thought would be a good opportunity to focus in on some actual legislative issues, and one that caught my eye that I definitely wanted to bring up was a bill that was proposed by Representative Melissa Shusterman, 157th District Democrat out of Chester County, and it's a pretty straightforward bill. It's just a cosponsorship memorandum right now which, for those who aren't familiar, legislators submit memos or cosponsorship memos to their colleagues to see who wants to sign on board a piece of legislation and then, after a period of time, it's actually introduced and given a bill number and goes through the process or not. So we don't have a bill number for this yet, or legislative language. It's just an idea, but it's a pretty interesting one and, I think, a pretty straightforward one. And the subject of the cosponsorship memo is coverage for abortions through Pennsylvania's Health Insurance Exchange. So it says.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Under current PA law, health insurance plans purchased through the Pennsylvania Health Insurance Exchange Authority, otherwise known as PENI, are prohibited from providing coverage for the cost of an abortion, except in cases where the abortion is performed in order to prevent the death of the mother or if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. Abortion is healthcare and therefore Pennsylvania should not be prevented from receiving abortion services due to a lack of coverage in their health insurance plan. To address this situation, I plan to introduce legislation that would repeal provisions in PA law that would prevent coverage for abortions through health insurance plans purchased through PENI. The legislation would not require health insurance plans to include coverage for abortion services, but rather allow health insurance plans to provide our residents with additional healthcare options. Okay, so pretty straightforward, right? Current law doesn't allow these government sponsored plans to include abortion coverage except in cases of life of the mother, rape or incest. Pretty straightforward. This would lift those prohibitions Again.

Speaker 1: 2:48

I think it's a great bill. I think it doesn't have a prayer of going anywhere, because the makeup of the chamber is obviously, even if you were to get it out of the one vote majority state house, there's no way it gets through the Republican state Senate. But that's really not the point. First of all, I've never used or judged a piece of legislation based on the likelihood of whether or not it will be passed. I mean, when I was a rep, I introduced bills all the time that never got passed or were co-opted by Republicans and passed by them. In some instances I was actually all for it, because pride of authorship doesn't need to be a thing.

Speaker 1: 3:30

However, because this has to deal with abortion, which is obviously a hot button topic heading into the election, for all the reasons we already know, it made me think and wonder about abortion related legislation that has been introduced, pending in the state house and Senate, because there's this common belief that abortion is a winning issue for Democrats. In light of the Dobbs decision, we've seen even more of that in Alabama with the issue with IVR. The perception is Republicans really want to take away and continue to narrow a woman's right to choose in a variety of different circumstances when it comes to women's health, whereas Democrats are fighting for those rights and obviously fighting to empower women to be able to make their own health care decisions. Fairly straightforward, I don't think I'm overstating the positions there, but what I was curious was to see how the legislation stacks up with the politics, and by that I mean a lot of times members will introduce bills not because they think they're ever gonna become law, but because it's gonna give them something that they campaign on. It's gonna give them a good press hit. It's gonna allow them to do that circuit might be able to. It's something that might be helpful with fundraising, even though they're not directly related, you know, nor could they be on paper, but it's a way.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Sponsoring a piece of legislation is a way to put your marker out there and let people know where you stand on an issue. If you're willing to stand up and fight on an issue and see and allow someone to take leadership on an issue, right. So there are a lot of things you can do by introducing legislation that are adjacent to the actual idea of getting the bill passed, and I just assumed before I went and looked, that a lot of Republicans would have been all over legislation that would restrict abortion rights or codify certain policy decisions, whatever it's something they could do to put their marker down as being quote pro-life which we all know is a ridiculous term but anti-abortion. And it was fascinating what I found. So I did a search for all the co-sponsorship memos for this session, which goes all the way back to the beginning of last year, so we're going back to January 9th or whatever 2023, all the way through today, and I ran it by a keyword of abortion, and there are 23 results that have shown up in this session, of which all but two all but two, 21 out of 23, were legislative proposals intended to expand abortion rights, access to care, and only two of them or what we would consider to be pro-life and, to be quite honest, I don't even know if that's the case.

Speaker 1: 7:04

So, for example, the one that was introduced early on by Representative Stephanie Borowitz, who's just crazy, right, she's made all sorts of crazy statements, she's fundamentalist right-wing Christian and legislates that way, and it's obvious in the thing she says and the thing she does. So if there's gonna be some crazy coming out of that chamber, you could assume that Stephanie Borowitz is gonna be involved somehow. So the bill that she sponsored, which is House Bill 320, it is the feudal heartbeat bill and it's common boilerplate language among Republicans and conservatives saying that a feudal heartbeat should be a metric that you use to determine whether or not abortion should be performed. It's pretty straightforward. The other one was introduced by Representative Timothy Bonner from Mercer County, another Republican, house Bill 753, and it's called it's termed pain control for the unborn and I was like I'd never heard of this before. So I actually went and looked up the bill and I was like, oh, okay, republican, what are they gonna try to limit? And it's fairly simple and straightforward. But it says that no abortion shall be performed. I was like, oh, okay, here we go. So then it says without providing pain relief medication to the unborn child who is more than 15 weeks gestational age prior to the abortion process, unless the physician has prior knowledge of an adverse reaction to pain relief medication by the pregnant woman or there is medical emergency where there's insufficient time to provide pain relief medication before the abortion is performed.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Now I'm sure, like I said, this is a and, by the way, that bill has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 10 co-sponsors out of 203. Referred to. The Health Committee hasn't moved since it's not gonna move, especially with Democrats and the majority. But the thing that was interesting to me was that if you're looking at that, if that is like the second most quote pro-life bill in the pending in the PA house or Senate right now, that's pretty telling Because, while I'm sure there's a lot more to that bill than that issue and I don't wanna speak about it because I'm not haven't done my homework, but it's not an abortion ban. I mean it's directing pain relief medication, which I'm sure there are issues with, but it's not a ban on abortion. It's not an undue restriction on access to care, right. So what's interesting is and if you look at the other bills that are out there and I'm not gonna read them all, but it's Medicaid coverage for abortion, reproductive freedom act, let's see. Oh, stephanie Borowitz, I take that back she designated June 20th of 2023 as life month, so I guess that was technically a pro-life piece of legislation. Whatever Funding for family planning providers, permitting spousal notice and abortions, patient Trust Act, ensuring reproductive rights there's a lot. I mean, it goes on and on and on. So the point being is that Democrats are out there proposing legislation on this issue.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Republicans, saidym. It appears Republicans, put on the hood of the Republican group, are dead silent, dead silent. Even the craziest of the crazy are dead silent. And I have to wonder if there was anything inside the caucuses, especially in the House, because the amounts were reactionary, if there was kind of an edit in the House or Senate Republican caucuses saying X-NA on the abortion A legislation lay because they know it's just bad politics and it could kill them, no pun intended. It could kill them going into this election cycle because everywhere abortion has been on the ballot, reproductive rights have been on the ballot, real or perceived, even in conservative areas. You look at ballot initiatives in Kansas and constitutional amendments in places like Kansas and in conservative areas people don't put up with that crap. Right, they will vote to protect a woman's right to choose in far greater numbers than anybody would have probably envisioned pre-dobbs. The numbers speak for themselves and it only leads me to believe that there has to be some sort of some grown-up in the room on the Republican side, a political grown-up at least who said wait a minute, guys, we got to back off of this because the more people we have thrown our names on this, the more we're associated with these issues. It's going to hurt us in a chamber where it is a razor thin one vote margin.

Speaker 1: 12:10

These bills someone signing on as a cosponsor to some crazy anti-abortion bill a year ago could have major repercussions if it gets grabbed onto as an election issue and is used to defeat that member in 2024. Am I maybe giving them, the Republicans, a little too much credit for being so forward thinking. Politically I don't know, but it seems odd to me that of the 23 pieces of legislation, the overwhelming majority of them are pro-abortion rights, pro-women's right to choose, pro-expanding access to care, and only three go in the other column, one of which was a non-controversial resolution, one of which was typical boilerplate heartbeat bills, been around forever, and the other one was pain control for the unborn, which I don't think you could really even define as an anti-abortion bill. So I don't know. It seems a little odd to me and, quite frankly, I was shocked because, generally speaking, republicans do not hesitate to put crazy to paper at the first opportunity they have, and we'll get into some of those as we continue on the podcast, some of the truly crazy ideas and legislation that gets floated. But I think that what we can do is come to the one clear conclusion is that the legislative temperature in Pennsylvania clearly shows a lukewarm response to anti-abortion legislation and that shows me that the politics that we think are happening in other states and other parts of the country are very much alive and very much a play here in Pennsylvania, and I think that only bodes well for what we are going to see coming up in November, which will then allow us to take real legislative steps to address the underlying issue. So interesting to see.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Congratulations to Rep Schusterman on her bill. I'm looking forward to see how that goes. Always want to applaud a good idea. That can be controversial but important, and I think we'll see more of those as well. So again, thank you very much for listening. This is Monday, march 18th. You were listening to the Keys to a Reckoning podcast. We'll do it again tomorrow. Have a great day.