The Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial candidate made the comment in 2019 on WITF’s “Smart Talk”:
Listen. The “murder” argument picks-up around the twenty-four minute mark:
Here is NBC News:
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, said in 2019 that women should be charged with murder if they violated his proposed abortion ban.
In an interview with Pennsylvania radio station WITF, Mastriano was pressed about a bill he sponsored that would generally bar abortions when a fetal heartbeat could first be detected, usually around six weeks. Mastriano’s remarks in that interview were previously unreported.
Under his proposed legislation, Mastriano was asked whether a woman who decided to get an abortion at 10 weeks gestation would be charged with murder. Critics of the bill Mastriano backed, and of other “heartbeat bills,” say the approximate six-week timeframe is often before many women know they are pregnant.
“OK, let’s go back to the basic question there,” Mastriano said. “Is that a human being? Is that a little boy or girl? If it is, it deserves equal protection under the law.”
Asked if he was saying yes, they should be charged with murder, Mastriano responded: “Yes, I am.”
After the Supreme Court decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade, the future of abortion rights has played prominently on the campaign trail. But few races will prove more important in determining statewide abortion access than the governor’s contest in Pennsylvania, where those rights will be heavily influenced by whether Mastriano or his Democratic rival, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, win this fall.
Read the entire piece here.