Daryl Metcalfe, The Shame of Butler County, tries the old end around on abortion funding.
Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, said in a Wednesday news conference introducing the measure that it would end the "flow of taxpayer money to support abortionists."
The bill, similar to legislation attempted in a half-dozen states and supported by several Republican legislators and anti-abortion groups, prioritizes funding for hospitals, rural health care clinics and other providers, but prohibits Department of Health funds from going to any of those organizations that provide abortions.
As the article points out, the laws on the books already prohibit taxpayer dollars from going towards abortions, so the real effect this law would have should it pass is cut off money for other health services that have nothing to do with abortion. That loss of service will likely impact poorer residents who lack insurance or who live in rural areas.
The law could have an unintended consequence as well. By eliminating state funding to those health care facilities that perform abortions, it very well likely make those hospitals and clinics facilities provide abortions only, as the funding for that proceedure isn't supplied by tax dollars.
Just as an aside, I get the distinct impression that every far right bill that comes up in Harrisburg is associated with Daryl Metcalfe, The Shame of Butler County. Those bills are usually ones that have been introduced in other states first, or authored by ALEC, which leads me to suspect that Metcalfe is probably too stupid to actually write any orginal legislation on his own.