{"id":423797,"date":"2026-01-22T22:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T22:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/423797\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T22:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T22:47:07","slug":"nina-ahmad-kendra-brooks-clash-over-reproductive-health-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/423797\/","title":{"rendered":"Nina Ahmad, Kendra Brooks clash over reproductive health legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Kendra Brooks<\/a> isn\u2019t taking kindly to a recent gesture of duplication by one of her colleagues.<\/p>\n

The progressive City Council member is incensed at Councilmember Nina Ahmad, a Democrat who has been in something of cold war with Brooks for months<\/a> over stalled legislation related to reproductive healthcare access.<\/p>\n

It all came to a head Thursday when Ahmad introduced a resolution to hold a hearing examining access to such care in Philadelphia \u2014 legislation that would, under most circumstances, be uncontroversial in a body where Democrats<\/a> hold a supermajority.<\/p>\n

But Brooks and Councilmember Nicolas O\u2019Rourke, both of the progressive Working Families Party<\/a>, voted against it \u2014 a highly unusual move in a body that almost always unanimously approves legislation to authorize hearings.<\/p>\n

The backstory: Brooks had already authored legislation to hold a hearing on threats to reproductive healthcare, and City Council approved it five months ago. <\/p>\n

But the hearings have not happened. Ahmad, who chairs the Public Health and Human Services Committee, has refused to schedule Brooks\u2019 hearing, citing scheduling difficulties. That was despite pleas from advocates to move swiftly amid new federal restrictions on reproductive care and clinics closing due to funding loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, Ahmad is poised to call up her own legislation on the matter, leaving Brooks and her allies feeling squeezed out.<\/p>\n

Ahmad said her legislation is far more broad than Brooks\u2019 and would allow Council to examine the entire reproductive healthcare landscape, not just access to abortion care.<\/p>\n

The Council member who authors a resolution to hold a hearing typically has sway over how the hearing is conducted, including steering the tenor of it by lining up witnesses to testify. In turn, that can drive the creation of more concrete legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be comprehensive,\u201d Ahmad said in an interview. \u201cI\u2019m evidence-based. I\u2019m a scientist. I want to look at the whole breadth of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Brooks said she is focused on all forms of reproductive healthcare and criticized Ahmad\u2019s legislation for failing to acknowledge the role of the city\u2019s Reproductive Freedom Task Force, which Brooks leads. Members of that group called for Council hearings after local Planned Parenthood leaders said they were disappointed that the most recent city budget did not include a $500,000 line item for sexual and reproductive health<\/a>care,<\/a> as it did the previous year.<\/p>\n

Brooks said Ahmad was engaging in \u201cfoolishness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a level of petty that turns people off from politics,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really unfortunate that she would play politics on an issue that\u2019s this important.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Brooks intimated that the saga could cause her and her progressive allies to target Ahmad next year, when every City Council member is up for reelection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to forget this,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cWe\u2019re very close to reelection to be playing this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The veiled threat from Brooks, the face of the city\u2019s Working Families Party, is notable and could put the WFP on a collision course with the local Democratic Party \u2014 which tends to endorse incumbents such as Ahmad. The WFP has previously said its efforts to win minority-party seats on Council are no threat to Democrats.<\/p>\n

However, in 2023 when both Brooks and Ahmad were running for seats on Council to represent the city at-large, Ahmad said that the WFP<\/a> was trying to \u201cpoach\u201d Democratic voters and that its political strategy was \u201clazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Ahmad said Thursday she is not playing politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the one,\u201d Ahmad said of Brooks. \u201cI\u2019m the chair of the Public Health Committee, and I need to be aware of what work is going on in these respects. And if people don\u2019t want to share, that\u2019s up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks said she plans to hold her own hearing in March \u2014 what she is calling a \u201cpeople\u2019s hearing\u201d that will take place outside the walls of City Hall.<\/p>\n

Some advocates say they will participate in both that event and Ahmad\u2019s traditional hearing. <\/p>\n

Signe Espinoza, the vice president of public policy and advocacy at Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, said she is supportive of any legislation that elevates the issue \u2014 no matter the author.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to keeping the doors open, and we also recognize that this is the most hostile environment we\u2019ve ever been in,\u201d Espinoza said, noting that clinics have closed across the country. \u201cThe clock is ticking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Kendra Brooks isn\u2019t taking kindly to a recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253,201919],"class_list":{"0":"post-423797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-nina-ahmad-kendra-brooks-abortion-bill"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}