The Democratic candidate for Senate District 49, Jim Wertz, lists protecting abortion among his top priorities if he is elected. According to Wertz, “abortion rights are under attack in Pennsylvania and across the country.” In order to protect these rights, Wertz says he “is committed to a constitutional amendment that protects the right to choose.”

Wertz has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania PAC, the Pennsylvania affiliate of the nation’s preeminent reproductive rights advocacy organization. The organization’s endorsed candidates must indicate their commitment to supporting pro-choice legislation. 

As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, legislatures across the country attempted to pass swarms of anti-abortion legislation. In Pennsylvania, the Republican-controlled legislature passed SB 106, which would have amended the state’s constitution by saying it does not “grant the right to taxpayer-funded abortion or any other right relating to abortion.” The amendment, if successful, would effectively prevent challenges in state court to any future restrictive abortion laws passed in Pennsylvania. 

The Republican candidate in the race is incumbent Sen. Daniel Laughlin. While Laughlin did not vote for SB 106, he twice voted to advance SB 956, a previous version of the abortion amendment that would have changed the Pennsylvania Constitution to read, “[t]he policy of Pennsylvania is to protect the life of every unborn child from conception to birth, to the extent permitted by the Federal Constitution. Nothing in this Constitution grants or secures any right relating to abortion or the public funding thereof.” Laughlin has also supported restrictions on access to abortion medication, voting for telemedicine legislation that “included a controversial provision banning abortion-inducing medication.”  

Updated August 29, 2024.