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The Pennsylvania House approved new restrictions Tuesday on elective abortions after an emotional debate and despite a veto threat from the governor.The chamber voted 132-65 to ban the procedure after 20 weeks, compared to 24 weeks in current law. It also would criminalize procedures that cause the deaths of fetuses by removing their body parts.The bill's sponsor, Rep. Kathy Rapp, said the dilation-and-evacuation abortion procedure "tears a living human being to pieces.""All Pennsylvania mothers and their unborn children deserve far better than this," said Rapp, R-Warren. "Science agrees and so does the majority of Americans."Nine Republicans, nearly all from the Philadelphia suburbs, voted against the bill. Twenty-five Democrats voted "yes."Gov. Tom Wolf is threatening to veto the measure if it gets out of the Senate.Opponents said the bill did not offer exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape and incest, although there are exceptions if the procedure would save the mother's life or prevent impairment of a major bodily function."This bill, if it becomes law, would force women to carry pregnancies with horrible fetal abnormalities," Rep. Leanne Krueger-Braneky, D-Delaware, said.Others said the measure did not get proper input from doctors because it was crafted without public hearings, warning it would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship.Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Montgomery, warned of a "return to those dark days of stepping into the shoes of the women and stepping into the shoes of a practitioner and telling other people what to do."Supporters in the Republican-majority House said the 20-week limit reflected medical advances that make fetuses viable on their own at earlier stages of pregnancy.The dilation-and-extraction procedure, which the bill's supporters termed "dismemberment abortion," amount to "ripping a baby from its mother's womb, limb by limb," said Rep. Judy Ward, R-Blair."If this practice were done to animals, people would be outraged," Ward said.Six states have approved laws to ban the dilation-and-extraction procedure, according to Elizabeth Nash, who tracks state abortion legislation for the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute, which supports legal access to abortion.Nash said dilation and extraction is the most common method of second-trimester abortion.West Virginia's prohibition is in force, court challenges have stopped implementation in three states and newly passed bans in two states have not yet taken effect."This bill is a microcosm of the type of restrictions we've been seeing over the past year, in particular, at the state level," Nash said.Pro-Life Coalition of Pennsylvania president Mike McMonagle called the bill a "small but significant step toward the day when all children are welcomed in life and protected by law."Get the WTAE Pittsburgh's Action News 4 App