PENNSYLVANIA, USA — The issue of abortion has been near the top of voters' minds since Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.
Viewers of FOX43 have selected this issue as one of their most important in this year’s election as part of FOX43’s Pennsylvania’s Choice series.
Local residents on both sides of the argument say their personal experiences have shaped their opinions on whether the federal or state governments should control whether women could choose to have an abortion.
Shay Ellis of Lewisberry Township became pregnant with a third child six years ago, but the health conditions of their oldest son provided a financial strain, which forced Ellis to make a difficult choice.
"My oldest child is severely disabled, has had five brain surgeries, autism, hydrocephalus," Ellis said. "I, at the time, was a working class person making $13 an hour, the only worker in my family at the time, and so with having a severely disabled child and being working class, poor, making under $40,000 a year, or maybe even under 30 at the time, it just wasn't feasible. And so I made the decision that I needed to make."
Ellis became one of the roughly 60% of people who have had abortions who already have children, which abortion rights advocates say is evidence that each decision of whether to carry forward with a pregnancy is a unique and private choice.
"They understand fully what it requires of them and their resources to to raise a child and to support the children they have," said Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson. "We don't know why someone may need medical care, why something may have happened in relationship to the pregnancy, and that's exactly why we as average citizens, perhaps as politicians, don't need to be involved in the decision making. If we trust women and we trust doctors to make decisions about what is right for them and what is best for them and their family and their plan, then we should actually say that and not let the government interfere in that decision."
On the other end of the issue, Wendy Vahar of York says her stance against abortion rights stems from her experience growing up in a household that took in foster children.
"I was able to see firsthand the struggles that these young women in these families go through," Vahar said. "They chose life. They didn't abort their child, even under the harshest circumstances that they were in. They just did choose life. And I respected them for that."
Anti-abortion advocates say these experiences show the alternate options that are available to parents, as opposed to having an abortion.
"We know from research that there are as many as a million couples waiting to adopt children," said Maria Gallagher, the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Pro Life Federation. "And we also know from the research that there are as many as a million abortions in a given year in the US. So there are families out there who are waiting for the chance to show love to those precious children, and we need to recognize that fact."
