{"id":25268,"date":"2025-11-05T07:39:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/25268\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T07:39:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:39:12","slug":"pennsylvania-votes-to-keep-high-court-majority-that-has-upheld-abortion-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/25268\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania votes to keep high court majority that has upheld abortion access"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n \"Tyler
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

By Tyler Arnold<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 4, 2025 \/
\n 22:10 pm<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania voters elected to retain three Democratic justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court following a campaign with outside groups casting the vote as a referendum on abortion access, election integrity, and the future balance of the court.<\/p>\n

The outcome means Democrats will maintain their 5-2 majority on the court.<\/p>\n

With more than 54% of the vote tallied, 62.3% voted to retain Christine Donohue, 62.5% voted to retain Kevin Dougherty, and 62.4% voted to retain David Wecht. None of the other justices were on the ballot for 2025.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee celebrated the victory on X.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to tonight\u2019s victories, the court\u2019s Democratic majority will continue to protect fair maps, voting rights, and reproductive freedom for Pennsylvanians for years to come,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, state Supreme Court justices are chosen through partisan elections to 10-year terms. When a judge\u2019s term expires, voters choose whether to retain them for another 10 years with a \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d vote. Only one justice has ever lost a retention vote: Russell Nigro in 2005.<\/p>\n

While the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race had over $100 million in total donations and spending, setting a new national record for a state judicial election, the Pennsylvania race totaled a fraction of that, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State<\/a>. An estimated $15 million poured into the race. Donors included Planned Parenthood and labor unions, among others, plus Jeff Yass, a businessman who is a billionaire and the commonwealth\u2019s richest man.<\/p>\n

The 2025 campaign for Democratic justices focused heavily on abortion access.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One campaign advertisement<\/a> in favor of retaining the three justices detailed the pro-life laws in several other states after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It called the Democratic justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court \u201cour last line of defense\u201d against restrictions on abortion.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court revived a 2019 lawsuit<\/a> filed against the state\u2019s Abortion Control Act. The existing law, which the state Supreme Court upheld in 1985, prohibits the use of state funds for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother\u2019s life is at risk.<\/p>\n

In the decision, the majority ruled that banning public funds for most abortions \u201cdiscriminates against those women who choose to exercise their fundamental right to terminate a pregnancy\u201d and asserted the state constitution\u2019s guarantee of equal protection \u201cincludes a right to decide whether to have an abortion or to carry a pregnancy to term.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court sent the case back down to the appellate court, which could set the stage for a major abortion ruling in the state that could open the door to taxpayer-funded elective abortions.<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, elective abortion is legal through the 23rd week of pregnancy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reproductive Freedom For All also celebrated the wins on X. The organization wrote<\/a> Donohue\u2019s win would protect abortion access \u201cand will help to fight anti-abortion restrictions.\u201d It called Wecht\u2019s<\/a> win \u201ca key success for abortion rights in the state.\u201d The account wrote Dougherty<\/a> would \u201ccontinue to protect abortion access in the Keystone State.\u201d<\/p>\n

All three justices were endorsed by<\/a> Planned Parenthood PA PAC and Reproductive Freedom for All.<\/p>\n

Other issues that came up during the campaign included redistricting fights and mail-in voting.<\/p>\n

(Story continues below)<\/p>\n

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Donohue reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 2027. Both Dougherty and Wecht are 63 years old, which means they will not face another retention vote until 2035.<\/p>\n


\n \"Tyler
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Tyler Arnold is a staff reporter for Catholic News Agency, based in EWTN News\u2019 Washington Bureau. He previously worked at The Center Square and has been published in a variety of outlets, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative, and The Federalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tyler Arnold Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 4, 2025 \/ 22:10 pm Pennsylvania voters elected to retain three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16691,28,30,29,16121,593],"class_list":["post-25268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-catholic-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state-supreme-court","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}