John Carney Jr signs Delaware passes law to guarantee access to abortions
Whether Roe v Wade is ever overturned or not, abortions in Delaware appear to be available for all in the future. Delaware’s governor, Democratic Governor John Carney Jr. said on Friday he supported the rights and protections afforded under Roe v. Wade, and signed into a law a bill ensuring legal abortions.
“For that reason, he signed the bill into law,” said the spokesman, Jonathan Starkey, noting that the law takes effect immediately.
The Delaware law also required all abortions to be performed within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
As Delaware State News reports, however, if Roe v. Wade is struck down, the timeline for abortions in the state will be expanded:
The bill would allow abortions for any reason and would expand the timeline to let a doctor terminate a pregnancy any time before the fetus is “viable,” defined as “the point in a pregnancy when, in a physician’s good faith medical judgment based on the factors of a patient’s case, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”
An abortion could be performed after viability in the event of potential harm to the mother or the fetus being unlikely to survive outside the womb.
photo Alyson Jones
“With a pro-life President in the White House and already one pro-life Justice nominated and confirmed, abortion advocates are running scared,” said SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement. “Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are using Delaware as a testing ground for their extreme legislation to ensure abortionists can carry out abortions without limit – even on healthy children hours from birth.”
“We applaud Governor Carney for sending a strong message that state policymakers will protect women’s access to critical reproductive health services in the face of threats at the federal level,” said Amanda Allen, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Elizabeth Nash, an analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, said the law makes a statement that women are valued citizens in Delaware.
“It says to women that you are important, you have the ability to decide when to have a child and the state supports you in making the decision that is best for you and your family,” Nash said.
Delaware Right to Life posted to Facebook that the new law is a “tragedy”:
This abortion law is a tragedy for Delaware as it codifies abortion on demand for any and no reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy based upon the abortion doctor’s “good faith medical judgement.” Delaware Right to Life is deeply saddened that a Catholic governor would not follow the duty of his faith to protect the lives of innocent unborn children from death at any stage in a pregnancy and their mothers from unscrupulous abortion providers. He ignored the voices of Delawareans who rallied in opposition to this legislation, which now makes us the First State for Unrestricted Abortion.
