Perry

A York County legislator who gets top ratings for his anti-abortion voting record has pulled his sponsorship from a controversial state bill that would mandate ultrasounds for women who are about to have an abortion.

State Rep. Scott Perry, R-Dillsburg, said he supported House Bill 1077 before it was amended in committee, but it became too heavy-handed. The bill was tabled late last month amid complaints from the medical community, with supporters saying concerns must be aired before the bill is reintroduced.

But Perry said he was upset about his colleagues' methods of crafting the bill, not the opposition.

The bill changed so much in committee that he feels his colleagues should've reconnoitered with supporters to ask if they agreed with the new version.

Constituents asked him about the bill and he was so confused and misinformed, because he wasn't aware of the changes, that he was spreading misinformation, he said.

"I'm not sure if it was intentional or happenstance," he said. "I'm a strong pro-life advocate but I'm also opposed to mandates. The mandates were never part of the initial bill."

Mandates: Perry said he doesn't support the mandate for a transvaginal ultrasound over the traditional external ultrasound.

"To me, that's between a woman and a doctor, how they determine the age of the fetus, as long as they do it," he said.

He's also opposed to the "screen-position mandate," forcing the woman to look at the screen, he said.

There might be a version of the bill that he'll support, he said, but he pulled his name from the version that was amended significantly.

He said he signed onto the legislation because it was intended to prevent incidence of clinics not determining the gestational age of a fetus before aborting.

He wanted to avoid circumstances where women believed they were pregnant and had an abortion but were actually either never pregnant or miscarried, he said, and such scenarios are possible when an ultrasound isn't performed before abortion, he said.

"They could go through life thinking they had an abortion ... when they were never pregnant or miscarried," Perry said.

Other York reps: Perry is one of more than two dozen legislators to pull support of the bill, with co-sponsorship dropping from 110 co-sponsors before the debate to 82 co-sponsors on Monday.

Among the remaining sponsors are four members of York County's house delegation: Rep. Stan Saylor, R-Windsor Township, Rep. Keith Gillespie, R-Hellam Township, Rep. Seth Grove, R-Dover Township, and Rep. Will Tallman, R-Reading Township.

Rep. Ron Miller, R-Jacobus, was York's only Republican not to sign onto the bill. The county's only Democrat, Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-West Manchester, opposes it.

- Reach Christina Kauffman at 505-5436, ckauffman@yorkdispatch.com, or follow her on Twitter at @YDYorkCounty.