Mission To Protect Reproductive Rights And Women's Health Care ‘Never More Urgent'

By Peter Hall, Pennsylvania Capital-Star

November 19, 2025

Reproductive, maternal, and community health advocates called on state lawmakers Tuesday to safeguard women’s health care access from mounting threats in Washington, D.C.

Pennsylvania has been a haven for reproductive rights, speakers said in a rally at the state Capitol, as other states have criminalized abortion. The commonwealth has also expanded health insurance coverage for expectant mothers as the federal government has cut back, they said.

“Pennsylvania has a real opportunity right now to be a state where people are safe, where they’re supported and where we’re able to make decisions about our bodies, our futures. Our communities are asking for this,” Roxanne McNellis of The Women’s Centers, a group of independent abortion providers, said. “We’re going to make it impossible to ignore.”

In the coming year, members of the legislature’s Women’s Health Caucus and Black Maternal Health Caucus said they plan to redouble efforts to protect women’s rights to decide when to have children and ensure they remain safe and healthy when they do.

“It’s no longer a threat,” House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia) said. “We are at the door … where decisions will be made on the future of not only where our daughters can get health care, but where we as women … and our neighbors and our friends and our constituents, our sisters, our daughters, our nieces, are able to get health care.”

The Black Maternal Health Caucus, founded by Reps. La’Tasha D. Mayes (D-Allegheny), Gina Curry (D-Delaware) and Morgan Cephas (D-Philadelphia), launched in 2023 with a package of legislation, dubbed the “Momnibus,” to combat alarming maternal morbidity rates among women of color.

According to the latest report from the state Maternal Morbidity Review Committee, Black women suffered pregnancy-associated deaths at well over double the rate of white women in 2021. In total, 129 individuals lost their lives during pregnancy, delivery, or up to one year postpartum.

The caucus introduced eight bills related to maternal health in 2024 and two made it to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk to become law. They provide Medicaid coverage for doulas, who are women who provide guidance and support for mothers during labor and after childbirth, and require the state Health Department to help women experiencing postpartum depression find resources to help.

This year, Mayes said, the caucus aims to pass House Bill 1234, introduced by Mayes, and H.B. 1088, introduced by Rep. Mandy Steele, which would require Medicaid and private health insurers to pay for blood pressure monitors for pregnant women. Hypertension during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage or the death of the mother.

Mayes said the caucus will also work to advance legislation to guarantee access to in vitro fertilization. “We must make sure that no matter what your income is and no matter what your insurance coverage is, that you have access to IVF services,” she said.

Another bill modeled on the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act would make it a crime under state law to interfere with staff or clients entering reproductive health care clinics.

The caucus also has sights set higher than making new laws, with a bill sponsored by Mayes and Reps. Liz Hanbidge (D-Montgomery) and Danielle Friel Otten (D-Chester) to start the process of amending the state Constitution to protect access to abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson reversed a half-century-old precedent that guaranteed a right to privacy in decisions about reproduction across the country, giving states the ability to ban abortion.

The proposed amendment would guarantee the “right of privacy with respect to personal, sexual, and reproductive healthcare decisions, including the right to choose or refuse an abortion, the right to choose or refuse contraceptives, and the right to choose or refuse fertility care, all without discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or relationship status,” according to a memo by seeking support for the bill.

“Our mission is not about political ideology,” Rep. Mary Jo Daley (D-Montgomery) said. “It is about ensuring that no one is denied medical care due to fear or force. Our state must be a place where personal freedoms are protected and where every resident can access health care without interference.”

Women’s health advocates are also working in the courts to defeat a discriminatory ban on Medicaid covering abortions, noted Lila Slovak, director of the Philadelphia office of the Women’s Law Project, a public interest legal advocacy group focused on women.

It is leading a group of reproductive health care centers in the litigation and won a historic decision by the state Supreme Court last year that overturned a 42-year-old decision that upheld the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act’s ban on Medicaid-funded abortions except in cases of rape or incest.

The ruling cleared the way for the Commonwealth Court earlier this month to hear arguments in the underlying lawsuit in which the centers claim the ban violates the commonwealth’s Equal Rights Amendment.

Republican Attorney General Dave Sunday’s office filed a brief earlier this year arguing the state has a compelling interest in protecting life, safeguarding women’s health, and respecting the conscience rights of taxpayers. Sunday’s brief also argues there is no right to abortion or “reproductive autonomy” under the state’s constitution and any rights can be regulated or limited by the legislature.

“Our mission to focus on state law and state constitutional protections has never been more urgent than it is today,” Slovak said.

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