PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia City Council’s female members say they plan to introduce legislation at Thursday’s meeting that would bolster protections for abortion rights.
Councilmembers Helen Gym, Jamie Gauthier and Kendra Brooks are spearheading the effort. They held a news conference to preview three bills that Gym says will make Philadelphia a leader in abortion rights protection.
“We have a responsibility, a moral duty as a city government to step up and defend this critical right,” said Gym. She added that her bill would limit the sharing of reproductive health information for prosecution or civil suits.
“Philadelphia will establish one of the strongest privacy laws in the country to protect abortion as a fundamental right,” she said.
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Brooks’s bill would add reproductive health decisions to the city’s anti-discrimination laws, and Gauthier’s bill would guard against predatory lawsuits against providers or patients by enacting a right to countersue.
“It’s up to all of us, even local government, to stand up for the fundamental right to reproductive health care,” said Gauthier.
In the course of explaining their bills, both Brooks and Gauthier disclosed that they had had abortions. Gauthier’s happened when she was 16.
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“The [U.S.] Supreme Court cannot fathom what it is like to be a 16-year-old girl faced with the decision to have a child,” Gauthier said, “but I know because I was that girl.”
The Council members say they are plowing new ground with the bills, and hope they can be used as blueprints by other local governments. All three said they are acting quickly because the future of abortion rights in Pennsylvania appears precarious.
The proposed local legislation comes after the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a ruling that pushed regulating abortions to states. It also comes less than two months before midterm elections that will likely decide the future of abortion access in Pennsylvania moving forward.
“We did want to push on the privacy issue because we think it’s so fundamental and it’s really the fundamental underpinning behind Roe v. Wade, that (abortion) was and always is a private decision about what to do with your healthcare and your body,” Gym said.
Philadelphia isn't the first municipality to consider local regulations around abortion access.
In July, the Pittsburgh City Council passed three bills aimed at protecting access to abortion locally. Those measures included a law that protects abortion providers from out-of-state investigations — known as a shield law — and legislation that requires local law enforcement agencies to deprioritize the enforcement of any criminal ban on abortion enacted at the state level.
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The third Pittsburgh bill increased scrutiny on practices at pregnancy crisis centers, which often work to dissuade pregnant women from seeking abortions. It creates a complaint process for what the council said were deceptive practice and a way to refer those complaints for possible criminal investigation.
Leaders in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have called the cities refuges for people traveling from other states that have enacted strict abortion bans to seek reproductive healthcare.
Philadelphia City Council is reconvening Thursday for its first session since summer break.