Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is one of those men who pride themselves on supporting women.
That is a good thing. My father was my biggest booster and basically used threats and candy — he started early on — to ensure that I would follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. He never treated me any differently than my three younger brothers, and I think of him when I think of the smarmy phrase “Girl Dad,” which he would have hated.
Josh is possibly like my father in his devotion to the women in his life, doting and solicitous, loving and proud. But for some bizarre reason, he seems to think the only thing we women care about is abortion.
Every time I see one of his ubiquitous social media posts, I am flung into the “women’s health” fallacy about abortion. I am told the governor will protect my access to “reproductive health,” which at this age means I will not be reproducing too much flatulence. But I digress.
Josh is one of those men who posture about abortion to pander to the sort of woman who writes things like this on my Facebook page:
“’I’m proud of our governor for letting women choose what to do with their bodies because no government, state or federal, has a right to tell anyone what to do with their bodies and Josh Shapiro is an amazing Governor who stands up for the women in Pennsylvania and if you don’t like it, you can just keep your mouth shut because you don’t know what these women go through … It seems like you’re the type of woman that doesn’t care about anything like that … I’m going to give you one piece of advice: stay in your own lane.”
There was a lot more that this poster wrote, but I have a word limit in this column so I picked out the most salient points. I would note that telling me to stay in my lane on my own Facebook page is unintentionally funny.
This, however, is a very typical response from the “WHLJ,” the women who love Josh. They have fallen for his narrative that he will stand between them and the evil pro-life protestors in this beloved commonwealth, a kind of Captain Pennsylvania with, on his shield, a bloody coat hanger in the place of the American star.
Josh has even convened conferences where abortion advocates lie about the violence they encounter at clinics. You know, those old ladies with rosaries and those retired men with their Phillies hats can be pretty darn threatening to a woman intent on extinguishing the life in her womb.
I have stood outside a variety of abortion clinics and simply prayed. I have also planted myself in front of a federal courthouse with a bullhorn to condemn the flawed and politically-motivated prosecution of Mark Houck, a man who was peacefully protesting at Planned Parenthood. And I have exposed the pernicious doxxing conducted by a former state representative, placing three teenagers in danger. I did not threaten, coerce or harm. On the contrary. I’m a lawyer, and I know how to stay on the sunny side of the legal street.
But protesting peacefully, which is what happens almost every day at abortion clinics, is protected conduct, as long as you don’t block access. The FACE Act guarantees that women seeking abortions, and the people who provide abortions, are protected.
That’s why these dog-and-pony shows conducted by Captain Pennsylvania on behalf of his happy harem, these aggrieved Madame Ovaries, are agitprop.
It is also being done for another reason. Shapiro uses social media as a weapon against his opponents more than as a way to get his own rather jaundiced message out to the public. If he and his acolytes can make pro-lifers like me look dangerous, he will have won back territory lost when the Supreme Court decided the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe. And Captain Pennsylvania is nothing if not a warrior for abortion rights.
That is why we will keep speaking out, peacefully but forcefully. That is why you will continue to see the rosaries and the baseball hats, the young teens with the “Generation Pro Life” signs, people like me who take a moment to stop in front of Planned Parenthood on their way to work to say a silent Hail Mary, and the magnificent icons of the movement like Dr. Monique Ruberu and Pat Stanton devoting their hearts and their presence to the 40 Days for Life campaign.
This is the face of the movement, and the defamatory comments that are made by our governor and the women who love him will not and cannot cancel out the truth of the message: All Lives Matter, even the ones we cannot yet see.
Copyright 2026 Christine Flowers
