Innamorato, Lee, Benham stump for abortion rights on Roe v. Wade anniversary

Eight years ago, Kelsey Leigh of Mt. Lebanon was 20 weeks pregnant when she learned that the son she was carrying would not be able to swallow or breathe.

His limbs and neck were deformed. His bones would have broken during delivery, she said, no matter the method.

“It was not compatible with life as I define it, healthy, with quality and free of suffering,” she said. “So I did what I knew was right and what I wanted to do for my son, my family and myself. I chose to have an abortion.”

Leigh, 37, shared her story on Monday as three female Democratic politicians from Western Pennsylvania gathered in Pittsburgh to urge voters to take action to protect abortion rights on the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Although the seminal 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion across the country was overturned in 2022, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, state Rep. Jessica Benham, D-South Side, and County Executive Sara Innamorato said at a news conference that now, more than ever, it’s important for the community to support the right to abortion as healthcare.

“We’re standing here today because when Trump’s Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion with the support of Republicans nationwide, they created more life-threatening conditions for pregnant patients in America than we’ve seen in over 50 years,” Lee said.

Their comments came on the same day that President Joe Biden announced steps his administration is taking to increase access to contraception, emergency abortions and abortion medication.

Gathered on the portico at the City-County Building in Downtown, the women urged voters to fight back against Republican efforts across the country to curtail abortion rights.

According to Planned Parenthood, abortion access is banned or severely restricted in 20 states. Innamorato said that 1 in 3 women in America now live in a state where abortion is banned or severely restricted.

Several elected officials held a news conference Monday on the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade to urge voters to fight for abortion rights in 2024. Kelsey Leigh, who terminated her pregnancy 8 years ago because her son would not survive birth, also spoke about her experience. pic.twitter.com/lUBevP2CCb

— Paula Reed Ward (@PaulaReedWard) January 22, 2024

Although Lee acknowledged that with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in office there is less of a threat to abortion access in Pennsylvania, she said that Republicans who recently ran for governor and U.S. Senate here strongly supported restrictions.

“The stakes in 2024 are beyond clear, and they’re as high as they’ve ever been,” Lee said.

”Besides defeating the extremism that Trump has ushered in … it is also about stopping the capture of our courts and our elections by right-wing billionaires and dark-money networks who are insistent on controlling us,” Lee continued. “We know that their fight isn’t just about abortion care, but what they really are looking to do is erode all of our rights, and they’re looking to erode our democratic institutions to ensure that the elections that we enjoy now are not the elections that we get to have in the future.”

Lee, who said that Black American women have some of the worst maternal and infant mortality rates in the developed world, urged voters to organize and elect what she called “reproductive champions” up and down the ballot.

Leigh said that since her abortion, she has lobbied state legislators, testified before Congress and attended the 2023 State of the Union address.

“I have found community and solace fighting and working alongside others for abortion access,” she said.

Leigh, who has three children and spent six months working at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center after the 2022 decision that overturned Roe, said one of the reasons why she shares her story is to help the public understand how common abortion is and to destigmatize it.

“That’s my son’s legacy,” she told TribLive. “For far too long in the past and even now, we see so much rhetoric — things that just have no basis in truth.”

Leigh typically addresses audiences that support the right to abortion to remind them how important their voices are.

“This is not just a talking point. We’re talking about my life.”

It’s important, she said, to remember history and learn from it.

“It is not just an issue to get voters fired up and to get people to turn out on a freezing cold day. Abortion is normal. Abortion is safe. Abortion is healthcare.”

Benham spoke about her own life, noting that, with a genetic condition, if she became pregnant, it would be high risk. She described the range of people who historically have had less access not only to abortion care but to health care in general. Benham said they included rural populations, the disabled and LGBTQ+ people.

“There was never justice here,” Benham said. “And what we do know is that the overturning of Roe v Wade exacerbated existing inequities and denied access to even more people.”

As the first woman to hold the position of county executive, Innamorato said that the threat to abortion rights directly affects her.

“I’m a woman in my 30s It’s me, it’s my sister, it’s my friends who are going through this process of deciding if and when and how they want to have children,” she said. “And sometimes, those are deeply exciting processes. Sometimes they’re devastating. But above all, they are private, personal decisions.”

Women need support, she said, not judgment from elected officials.

”As county executive, I trust women. I respect their rights,” Innamorato said. “And we’ll keep Allegheny County a safe place to seek abortion care. “