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Authorizing the Committees on Children and Youth and Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings concerning the imminent threat to the longstanding constitutional right to an abortion, to examine the profound and devastating local impact that the potential repeal of Roe vs. Wade would have on individual lives and society as a whole, and to explore what Philadelphia can do to ensure and increase access to abortion in the face of this threat.
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WHEREAS, Abortions are an integral part of healthcare; and
WHEREAS, The right to an abortion in the United States was recognized nearly fifty years ago in the 1973 ruling, Roe v. Wade, which declared a fundamental constitutional right to privacy that included the right to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; and
WHEREAS, Although the right to an abortion holds majority support in opinion polls, a continuous movement has succeeded in drastically restricting that right in dozens of states throughout the country, even denying exceptions based on rape and incest or the immediate health of the parent, and has used the courts to seek repeal of any right to an abortion; and
WHEREAS, As a result of those efforts, abortion availability has been drastically reduced in a number of states, including the state of Texas where courts recently allowed implementation of a law that would ban almost all abortions and which encourages vigilante-style private enforcement; and
WHEREAS, This week, a leaked draft copy of a United States Supreme Court opinion in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization revealed that a majority of the court plans to not only repeal Roe v. Wade but also intends to restrict additional civil rights including access to contraception, same sex marriage, and LGBT rights; and
WHEREAS, A repeal of Roe v. Wade would likely result in the immediate banning of legal abortion in thirteen states which currently have in place so-called "trigger bans" in the event of Supreme Court action. A to...
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