Abortion restrictions amount to sex-based discrimination, PA state Supreme Court says [View all]

[usonian]

https://www.advocate.com/news/pennsylvania-supreme-court-abortion-medicaid

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled against an antiquated anti-abortion law, with justices issuing a scathing rebuke of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
RYAN ADAMCZESKI
FEBRUARY 01 2024 3:03 PM EST

The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court has issued a scathing rejection of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, with justices arguing that abortion restrictions are based in the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”

Pennsylvania abortion providers filed a lawsuit in 2019 against a 1982 law that prohibits Medicaid from being used to cover the procedure. The groups argued that law violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution, with the state Supreme Court agreeing in a ruling issued earlier this week.

“To treat a woman differently based on a characteristic unique to her sex is to treat her differently because of her sex, which triggers enforcement of our Equal Rights Amendment," Justice Christine Donohue wrote in an opinion. (PDF)

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Wecht noted in a concurrence that Alito's legal analysis in the Dobbs decision "relied upon the patriarchal notions of eminent authorities of old English common law, including Lord Matthew Hale." Hale's “beliefs were driven by his goal of keeping women from encroaching upon the rights of men," who thought that giving women “legally enforceable rights over their own bodies was a threat to the freedom of men."