The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has taken its first step in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade.

It’s Senate Bill 1283 which places funding restrictions on state universities.

Should the university wants its share of state funding, the bill states that the university “must not engage in research or experimentation using fetal tissue obtained from an elective abortion.”

The bill was put forward earlier this month by Senator Patrick Browne, a Lehigh County Republican.

State Representative Kathy Rapp called the Monday vote the state’s “first step toward ending inhumane, taxpayer-funded research on unborn babies at our state universities” in a Monday Facebook post.

She said the bill was passed by a 108-92 margin “with all Democrats voting no.” Voting records show that vote was on second consideration and the bill has been moved back to committee.

The roll call for the vote shows a couple Republicans voting in opposition to the measure. In a Senate vote on June 20, Sen. Scott Hutchinson and GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano were just two of five Senators to oppose the bill.

The bill lays out the reporting process to ensure compliance and also slaps a couple additional burdens on the University of Pittsburgh — that the funding can’t be used to fund an environmental law clinic and must be used to cover costs “directly related to the provision of instruction for graduate and undergraduate students and costs incurred in providing student-related services and community outreach services consistent with the existing laws of this Commonwealth.”

Rapp insists there’s more work to be done in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“(T)here’s plenty more heavy lifting that needs to be done at the state level to fully usher in the post-Roe generation,” she said. “From the Pennsylvania House to America’s highest court, we will never tire of defending innocent life.”