The abortion issue was prominent when Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Erie on Monday. She talked about reproductive rights on stage at Erie Insurance Arena, while a small group of pro-life advocates marched outside.
Retired Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Cheryl Allen, now counsel for the pro-life Pennsylvania Family Institute, believes in this campaign people are being scared into thinking the they won't get medical care if a problem arises during their pregnancy. "You don't treat these complications through abortions and these people, I'm sorry to say this, but these people are lying and they're lying deliberately to mislead and scare women." Judge Allen said.
Angie Amatangelo, a pro-choice voter and school board member who works for Family Services, thinks this type of approach in political messaging may be what's needed. "While it is scary, I think that it's unfortunately necessary right now to have those hard conversations that can bring up a lot of emotions because this does touch a lot of people," Amatangelo said.
The judge also believes that two Georgia cases used as examples of women dying because of abortion bans ignores the facts. "These are two women who died because they had an abortion, which was administered through the abortion pill and not properly medically supervised," Judge Allen said.
While Amatangelo would like to see the country return to uniform federal abortion protections. "I believe that there should be protections federally because right now as it is, at the states, all we're seeing is more chaos and more people not knowing what to do," Amatangelo said.
Judge Allen maintains that women's health is protected all across the nation. "There is no state in the United States that does not allow for a pregnancy to be terminated in order to protect a woman's health," she said.
But Amatangelo believes that women have to prepare for what she called the "what-if's," depending on the outcome of the election. "So we've got to think into the future and think about how what's happening now will affect our daughters and our granddaughters later." Amatangelo said, "so I think that's why it's such a big deal."