In its final meeting before its summer recess, Pittsburgh City Council affirmed support for abortion rights by passing bills intended to limit the legal exposure of abortion providers — and to allow for more scrutiny of “pregnancy crisis centers” operated by abortion foes.
The bills come in the wake of last month’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. In a statement, Councilor Bobby Wilson, who sponsored the measures, said he drafted them because the court “took away the constitutional right of every American, every Pennsylvanian, every Pittsburgher to choose what happens to their body. I cannot accept that."
After debating the bills last week, council passed two of the measures with little fanfare Tuesday.
One of them precludes city officials from providing assistance to investigations of abortion providers, absent a court order. The measure – said to be the first of its kind in the country – is an effort to pre-empt the possibility that other states might pass laws to criminalize residents who seek abortions beyond state borders: It specifically exempts criminal or civil cases initiated under Pennsylvania law.
But a second bill asserts that, if abortion rights are restricted within Pennsylvania itself, by changes either in federal or state law, city police and officials will “deprioritize” enforcing such a law “to the fullest extent possible.”
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