CP Photo: Colin Williams
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato speaks to the media at a press conference on abortion rights
The explicit purpose of the gathering was to preemptively oppose any forthcoming federal abortion ban efforts under former President and Republican frontrunner for renomination Donald Trump. Though the likely nominee says he's for some exceptions to total bans on the procedure, he has also heavily touted the reversal of Roe during his first term in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Trump allies in states across the country have used the decision as a pretext to ban and restrict abortion at the state level — and to seek the prosecution of people who terminate their pregnancies. The assembled Democrats said a second Trump presidency would exacerbate this already-tenuous situation.
"We are standing here today 51 years after the Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade decision," U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (Pa.-12) said. "Today, 51 years later, we have less rights than our mothers."
Following Lee, Pa. Rep. Jessica Benham, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, and abortion advocate Kelsey Leigh shared their own warnings, threading together the personal and political implications of continued access to reproductive healthcare.
"As someone with a genetic condition that makes pregnancy very dangerous and complicated … if I got pregnant, it would likely be a high-risk pregnancy," Benham told Pittsburgh City Paper and other members of the media in the City-County Building's portico. "As we are now seeing, women on their literal deathbed are watching doctors wait for lawyers to finish arguing about whether or not to make an exception [to a given state's ban]."
Leigh spoke of her difficult choice to get an abortion after discovering her fetus had multiple life-threatening abnormalities. Leigh said she's since had the opportunity to share her story with state and national lawmakers as well as volunteer at a local clinic, giving her a sense of community and reminding her why access to abortion is so important, especially as neighboring states including Ohio and West Virginia have sought to curtail abortion rights.
"People are traveling far distances and wading through a cesspool of misinformation," Leigh said, "and so, while the Dobbs decision was and is still devastating, it only pulled back the curtain on the inequities that have existed for a very long time."
Lee noted that these inequities have manifested in high infant and maternal mortality in Pittsburgh, while Benham noted the way LGBTQ communities have lacked access to reproductive care. Both lawmakers said well-funded crisis pregnancy centers have exacerbated these issues despite losing state funding. Benham indicated that "there's been some discussion around actions the county council and the county executive's office can potentially take."
"At the federal level, we are still seeing really unfortunate attempts to legitimize crisis pregnancy centers," Lee told City Paper. "Just this last week at the federal level, we had the Republican caucus try to advance a bill that was under the misleading title of Pregnant Students Rights [Act]."
The group advocated for defeating Republican candidates up and down the ballot, especially given the impact gerrymandering has had on passing legislation.
"I know from my years in Harrisburg that Republicans will stop at nothing to restrict our right to access abortion care and our overall reproductive rights," Innamorato said. She deplored the way women like her were being forced to publicly reckon with a "private, personal decision."
"We need leaders at every level committed to protecting abortion access," she said, "now more than ever."
