Pennsylvania set the standard for many states that preferred to put restrictions on abortion laws following Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in America in 1973.
The state’s Abortion Control Act was passed in 1989, but faced a legal challenge from Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court ruled on the case in 1992, upholding the right to abortion but including the ability for states to provide some restrictions for access to
abortion as long as they were not extreme, according to FindLaw.
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The limits that Pennsylvania and other states adopted included public funding limits for abortion and parental notification in cases involving minors.
Pennsylvania along with other states have used the ruling to adopt other restrictions in the hope of curtailing the number of abortion procedures. For example, Pennsylvania has a state-sponsored counseling program that women seeking abortion are required to undergo.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, the counseling is geared toward discouraging abortion. Women must then wait another 24 hours after the counseling before an abortion can be provided.
Health insurance plans in Pennsylvania also limit access to abortion. Public employees can only get coverage for abortion in cases of life endangerment to the mother, rape or incest. Health plans under the Affordable Care Act have the same limits in the basic policies, but people can purchase an optional rider at an additional cost to cover abortion.
The bordering states of Ohio and Virginia have similar abortion laws, but New York and New Jersey are more liberal with no major restrictions on abortion.
Similar abortion laws, which have state-mandated counseling before abortion and limits on abortion coverage in health care plans for public employees and state health exchanges, were enacted in such states as North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, and Texas.
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Other states across the country, such as Connecticut and California, have not used the 1992 Supreme Court ruling in the Pennsylvania case to limit access to abortion, and don’t include parental involvement or public funding limitations, according to Guttmacher.
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