Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania. That could easily change, advocates warn.

Sixty years ago, Lois Gross stood before a panel of men who would decide her fate.

While pregnant with her second child, Gross contracted rubella during an outbreak that swept the United States in the early 1960s. Her doctors told her that pregnant women diagnosed with the highly contagious disease were at a higher risk for miscarriage and stillbirth and that their babies could face devastating lifelong medical issues. She and her husband decided Gross needed to have an abortion. 

This was the end of 1964, nine years before Roe v. Wade guaranteed the right to abortion nationwide. Gross would have to ask an all-male board of physicians in Philadelphia for permission to end her pregnancy.

“My father was not allowed to go in the room with her, and she had to stand on her own two feet, basically pleading to let her have an abortion,” Ronna Dewey, Gross’ daughter, told the Pennsylvania Independent. “And that’s where we’re headed, if the anti-abortion extremists have their way. And in many states, we’re already there.”

Ultimately, Gross received permission to have an abortion. A few years later, Dewey was born — something she’s certain wouldn’t have happened had her mother not been allowed to have a medically necessary abortion.

Six decades have now passed, and Dewey is now the state program director for Red Wine and Blue, a grassroots group that aims to engage suburban women in politics. She is fighting to ensure abortion remains legal in Pennsylvania — and that abortion rights are restored across the country.

“While this story is from 60 years ago, difficulty receiving abortion care is very much the reality for women today, nationally and in Pennsylvania,” Dewey said. 

Dewey shared her story during an Aug. 14 event in Harrisburg hosted by Free & Just, a national abortion rights advocacy campaign. As part of the campaign’s efforts to shine a light on people who have been harmed by restrictions on abortion access, members are traveling to cities throughout the country to advocate for reproductive rights.

The group kicked off its “Ride to Decide” bus tour in Madison, Wisconsin, in July and went on to condemn Republican-backed abortion bans at a stop in Milwaukee during the Republican National Convention. Since then, the bus has made stops in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina before arriving in Pennsylvania. In the commonwealth, the bus made stops in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. The group will travel to Ohio next before ending the trip during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The tour comes at a time when right-wing elected officials are working to restrict or end access to abortion, birth control and in vitro fertilization, including in Pennsylvania. Abortion remains legal through the 23rd week of pregnancy in the commonwealth, but reproductive rights advocates note that could change if there’s a shift in the state’s political leadership. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democratic lawmakers have vowed to protect abortion rights and expand access to reproductive care.

Republican legislators, meanwhile, have made it clear they want to limit access to abortion. In 2021, just before Republicans lost control of the state House, GOP lawmakers attempted to push through an amendment to the state Constitution that would have stripped Pennsylvanians of their constitutional right to abortion. Legal abortion could also end in Pennsylvania if there’s a national ban, something former members of President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans say they support.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have been vocal advocates for reproductive rights. During a campaign rally in Philadelphia earlier this month, Harris and Walz vowed to restore nationwide abortion rights should they win their bid for the White House in November.

“Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania, but by no means is it accessible in this state,” Adam Hosey, the policy director for Planned Parenthood PA Advocates, said during the Aug. 14 event. “Heath care should not be determined by your zip code, and in Pennsylvania, over half the women in this state do not have access to abortion in their own county. Back in the 1970s, there were over 170 places you could get an abortion. In Pennsylvania today, there are less than 20.”

During the event in Harrisburg, advocates spoke of lives that have been forever changed by government interference in health care decisions. Annie Wu Henry, a digital strategist who grew up in rural York County and now resides in Philadelphia, was born in China and adopted at 13 months old.

“I’m here in this country today because I was adopted when I was just an infant in China, and while I live a very wonderful life with really amazing, incredible parents, I can’t imagine the decisions and trauma that my birth mother had to make,” said Henry, who previously worked on U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s campaign. “And she had to make those decisions because of the one-child policy in China that I was born during, which is one of the most extreme examples of government overreach into people’s lives and their family planning.”

Henry said she is frustrated with the narrative that people should choose adoption over abortion.

“As we speak about reproductive freedom, and abortion specifically, in this country, it’s particularly infuriating when people speak on behalf of the adoptee community and oftentimes use adoption as the solution, saying things pretty casually of, Just put your baby up for adoption,” Henry said. “As an adoptee, I’ve heard the stories of the steps it took for my parents to go through an adoption process: the cost, the time, and that there was just still a lot of unknowns and some luck that happened.”

Joan Sabatino, a retired Unitarian Universalist minister and the director of Unitarian Universalist Justice Pennsylvania, described the importance of in vitro fertilization in her life. Both of her daughters used IVF to get pregnant. Sabatino, who lives in Harrisburg, now has two 3-year-old granddaughters because of a procedure that Republican lawmakers have attacked. In June, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would make access to IVF a right. House Republicans have worked to restrict federal funding for IVF services.

“Without IVF, I would not have the babies, grandchildren that I have,” Sabatino said. “So I am opposed to our government regulating my daughters’ choice to have a family.”