It had not been a smooth pregnancy for Anusha Viswanathan. In her 20th week of gestation, she and her husband walked into the hospital for a fetal anatomy scan.
The crestfallen faces of the ultrasound technician and the physician said it all. The Viswanathan baby was not viable.
Anusha Viswanathan had no choice but to abort the pregnancy. That was 11 years ago.
For Jayne Frankenfield the decision to end an unplanned pregnancy took place in 1974 when she was a junior in college.
“I’m not ready to have a baby,” she remembers thinking, but abortion was illegal in Pennsylvania. Frankenfield was determined for her and her fiancé to finish college. She heeded her friend’s counsel and traveled to New York for the procedure.
Now, so many years later, the decision still weighs heavy on these two women. Both cry when they share their personal story, even though both admit it was the best decision they could have made at the time.
“I went home to grieve my circumstance but never my choice,” Viswanathan said, wiping tears from her eyes. “It was the kindest thing I could do.”
Viswanathan and Frankenfield now have joined the ranks of advocates fighting to protect reproductive rights in Pennsylvania.
On Monday evening, they lent their voices to a Planned Parenthood Keystone event marking what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that for nearly half a century guaranteed the federal right to access to an abortion in the United States until it was overturned by the high court last June.
The press conference, held in the Civic Club of Harrisburg, was intended to amplify what has been lost by the reversal of Roe – particularly for those most impacted by abortion bans – but decidedly looking ahead to the future.
“We are obviously mourning Roe, which was nearly 50 years of legal precedence that gave us federal protection to abortion. At the same time, we know that was never enough,” said Signe Espinoza, executive director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. “We know Roe gave us legal protection but it did not guarantee access to abortion care in the state of Pennsylvania.”
Espinoza said reproductive rights advocates are not looking back but looking ahead.
“We are hoping to build something that is better for future generations and something that’s better for folks who are most impacted by abortion restrictions and bans,” she said.
The personal stories shared Monday evening tugged at heartstrings and brought the audience to its feet in standing ovations as several of the speakers shared their anguished experiences with abortion, and particularly with the efforts from anti-abortion advocates to restrict or ban access to the procedure.
“For far too long the antichoice movement has vilified those who seek abortion,” Viswanathan said. “Roe has fallen but I am reckless in my anger. I am angry at the bold face hypocrisy floated by those who demand rights for the liminal space between conception and birth. Rights they feel supersede those of the vessel that carries it.”
In the months since the Supreme Court overturned the federal protection to abortion, Pennsylvania, which by law, guarantees access to abortion, has seen the demand for the health care service increase exponentially from people from out of state.
Dr. Sarah Horvath, an abortion care provider in Pennsylvania, noted that since the reversal of Roe, one in three people who can get pregnant now have no access to abortion.
“I know because so many have come here and I have had the absolute privilege to be able to care for them,” she said. “People have traveled hours to sleep on couches or sleep in cars people who drove hours and drove back home the same day. These are the people who have the resources to get here, which isn’t everybody.”
Abortion is legal under Pennsylvania law up to 24 weeks of pregnancy (unless abortion is sought based on the sex of the fetus). The Abortion Control Act makes exceptions for extraordinary circumstances, including when the health of the person giving birth is at risk.
The high court decision to overturn federal protection for abortion returned the issue of reproductive rights back to the state. Thus far, at least 13 states have nearly eliminated abortion access. But even as other states have reinvigorated their laws protecting the procedure, the 2022 decision has caused profound confusion and fear among patients and care givers.
“We have seen confusion sowed by these laws both by patients and those who provide abortions,” Horvath said. “Colleagues from state to state wonder if they are going to jail or if they will lose their licenses or be fined. On a day-to-day basis they wonder which things will disqualify them from continuing to do what they do.”
Espinoza said she takes comfort in the fact that newly installed Gov. Josh Shapiro continues to avow his staunch protection for reproductive rights. In one of his first official meetings as governor, last week, Shapiro joined representatives of Planned Parenthood to amplify his commitment to reproductive rights in Pennsylvania.
Newly installed Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro has vowed to protect abortion rights in the Commonwealth. Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.com
Espinoza said she takes that with a measure of caution.
“Folks often time see other states as being more hostile, and they definitely are, but we need to remind ourselves that Pennsylvania has been a birthplace of fights like this and a birthplace of discrimination and bans and restrictions to our most basic rights,” she said.
“Pennsylvania plays a critical role in this fight. While people will argue that this is an access state, we push back on that. Yes abortion is legal in Pennsylvania, but we are living in the effects chipping away at access. Decades and decades of chipping away at those rights. We are seeing that right now.”
Shapiro’s predecessor, Tom Wolf, three times used his veto power to reject three measures passed by the General Assembly that would have restricted or banned abortions.
Now, Republican-led efforts in the Legislature seek to side-step a gubernatorial veto with constitutional amendments that puts the questions to voters. A current proposal is less explicit than the previous attempt to ban abortion via a constitutional amendment but nevertheless would indirectly impact access to abortion and reproductive health care.
“We know their playbook,” Espinoza said. “We know it’s happening in other states and we are seeing it happen here too.”
Kelly Davis, the executive director of New Voices for Reproductive Justice, reiterated that as a Black woman and a member of the Black community, she was not terribly upset at the loss of Roe.
“I‘m disappointed but I’m not despondent or enraged,” she said.
The two overarching reasons: The first that as a Black woman she is used to seeing “things die before their time,” proceeding to outline a gut-wrenching litany of racial injustices that lead to the disproportionate death of Black men and women at the hands of medical professionals, police and economic structures.
“For me Roe was just another death,” Davis said.
The second is a more important reason, she said: “The Black women who created the reproductive justice movement always have known that Roe was never enough and actually Roe has always been the floor.”
The movement, she said, must endeavor beyond attempts to reinvigorate Roe, which will never accomplish the ultimate goals.
“A daily shared commitment to advancing reproductive justice will,” Davis said.
More:
March for Life eyes Congress for post-Roe abortion limits
Western Pa. lawmaker’s federal bill would ban abortions after fetal heartbeat is detected