PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As the sands shift under Roe v. Wade, abortion will take center stage in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race.
Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, said it has been polling abortion and reproductive rights for decades in Pennsylvania.
“There's majority support to allow abortion within in the commonwealth,” he said. “There’s also strong support for certain limits on the availability of abortion.”
For nearly 50 years under Roe v. Wade, a woman could get an abortion up to about 23 weeks into her pregnancy. Texas passed a law that sets it at six weeks, while the Mississippi law, now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, says 15 weeks.
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The Pennsylvania House Health Committee moved a bill earlier this year that would ban abortions once a heartbeat is detected, which can happen around 21 days into a pregnancy, but it stalled, as Gov. Tom Wolf pledged to veto it.
State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, also a Democratic candidate for governor, has said repeatedly that a Democrat in the governor’s office is all that is stopping a law like Texas or Mississippi’s from coming to Pennsylvania.
Borick said the stage is set.
“What’s going to be key, I think, as we move into the electoral cycle is, how does the public view the various candidate and party positions on this issue?” he asked. “Are they seen as extreme — Republicans maybe pushing too far away from Roe v. Wade, or Democrats not recognizing some of the limits that the public does want?”