For as much rancor that has been spread on both sides of the aisle in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling effectively overturning a woman’s right to an abortion, the procedure remains legal in Pennsylvania.

The Abortion Control Act lays out regulations for the procedure in the Commonwealth and prohibits abortion “when the gestational age of the unborn child is 24 or more weeks.”

The most recent statistics available come from a December 2021 report from the Department of Health that notes abortion statistics from 2020. That report states there were 32,123 abortions that year.

Warren County residents make up just 10 of that total, falling in age ranges of 15-17 up to 35-39.

None of the procedures were performed in the county. The closest county where abortions were reported to have occurred is Allegheny.

The state also breaks down the week of gestation when the abortion occurred. For the 10 identified as residents of Warren County, four procedures occurred at eight weeks or less, two at 9-10 weeks, two at 11-12 weeks and two at 13-14 weeks.

Data from the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights entity, shows that the abortion rate in Pennsylvania fell slightly from 2014 to 2017 but acknowledged challenges in the data in that “some patients may have traveled from other states, and some Pennsylvania residents may have traveled to another state for an abortion.”

State law defines abortion as “the use of any means to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman with knowledge that the termination by those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn child….”

Exceptions to that definition are “the use of an intrauterine device or birth control pill,” a noteworthy element given that some states have suggested the possibility of banning these forms of contraception.

There is an exception to that when a doctor “reasonably believes that it is necessary to prevent either the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the woman.”

Public facilities and public funds can’t be used for abortion services though several exceptions exist from a funding perspective – the life of the mother, rape victims and those conceived via incest.

The law also includes a 24-hour waiting period where the woman is informed of several things including “the proposed procedure or treatment and of those risks and alternatives to the procedure or treatment that a reasonable patient would consider material to the decision of whether or not to undergo the abortion.”

The law also puts a burden on physicians to make a “determination of the probable gestational age of the unborn child.”

While Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion stated that the court should “reconsider” cases including Griswold, which permitted the use of contraception, the Abortion Control Act currently takes a clear stance on that issue.

“The Commonwealth shall not interfere with the use of medically appropriate methods of contraception or the manner in which medically appropriate methods of contraception are provided,” the Act states.