HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that his administration has launched a new website designed to provide facts and information about abortion access in the commonwealth.
The website was launched in the aftermath of a recent Texas court decision seeking to restrict access to medication abortions nationwide, according to a statement on the site.
"On April 7, 2023, a federal judge of the Northern District of Texas reversed the Federal Drug Administration’s decades-long approval of abortion pill regimen of mifepristone followed by misoprostol," the website states. "Medication abortions often use a two-step regime of mifepristone and misoprostol at abortion clinics, pharmacies, or through the mail.
"Even with the ruling, medication abortion is still legal and available in Pennsylvania. You can receive a medication abortion at a licensed clinic. Your medical provider can discuss the best option for you."
The "Freedom to Choose" website features an interactive map of reproductive health care providers across Pennsylvania, as well as facilities in neighboring New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Maryland.
Visitors can also learn how to plan and ways to pay for abortions.
The website says it does not offer medical or legal advice, but merely provides information to help visitors make their own informed decisions.
Access to medication abortions was placed in limbo by a pair of competing decisions by two federal judges in Texas and Washington Friday, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, Texas, overruled decades of scientific approval and put on hold federal approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in combination to end pregnancies. The judge immediately stayed his ruling for a week so federal authorities could file a challenge.
At about the same time in Spokane, Washington, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama appointee, directed federal officials not to hinder access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued to keep the drug’s availability intact.
The issue will likely be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year repealed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that had established a constitutional right to abortions.