When Can You Get an Abortion in Pennsylvania?

You can get an abortion in Pennsylvania through the 23rd week of pregnancy, counted from the first day of your last menstrual period.¹ After 24 weeks, the procedure is only legal to prevent your death or serious, irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.² Before any abortion at any stage, state law requires a 24-hour waiting period following an in-person physician consultation.³

How the Gestational Limit Is Measured

Pennsylvania counts gestational age from the first day of your last menstrual period, not from conception.⁴ That matters, because the last-menstrual-period method typically adds about two weeks compared with counting from fertilization. If you aren’t sure of your dates, the physician performing or referring the abortion must determine gestational age before proceeding, and most clinics confirm with an ultrasound.

The hard cutoff is 24 weeks. Through 23 weeks and six days, the procedure is available as long as every other requirement is met. At 24 weeks exactly, only the narrow medical exception described below applies.²

The 24-Hour Waiting Period

The soonest you can have an abortion in Pennsylvania is 24 hours after the required consultation. In practice, this means at least two visits: one for the state-mandated information and one for the procedure itself.³ The clock starts only once the physician has personally delivered the required disclosures to you in person, so scheduling the consultation as early as possible avoids extra delay.

At that first visit, the physician who will perform the abortion, or a referring physician, must orally tell you:

The nature of the procedure, its risks, and alternatives a reasonable patient would want to know.
The probable gestational age at the time the abortion would take place.
The medical risks of carrying the pregnancy to term.

A physician, physician assistant, or qualified health care practitioner must also tell you that the Pennsylvania Department of Health publishes free printed materials on fetal development and alternatives to abortion; that medical assistance may be available for prenatal care, childbirth, and newborn care; and that the father is legally obligated to help support the child, even if he offered to pay for the abortion. That last disclosure is waived in cases of rape. Before the abortion itself, you sign a written certification confirming you received all of this information.³

If You Are Under 18

Minors who are not legally emancipated need consent from one parent before a physician can perform the abortion.⁵ If the pregnancy resulted from incest involving the father, only the mother’s consent is needed. If the parents are divorced, the custodial parent’s consent is enough. When both parents are deceased or unavailable within a reasonable time, a legal guardian can consent, and when no parent or guardian is available, any adult acting in a parental role can.

If parental consent isn’t possible or safe, you can petition the Court of Common Pleas for a judicial bypass. The court holds a confidential hearing and decides either that you are mature enough to give informed consent on your own, or that the abortion is in your best interests. A yes to either question authorizes the abortion without parental involvement.⁵ You have the right to a free, court-appointed attorney for the hearing. The Women’s Law Project, at 412-281-2892, provides guidance on the process.⁶

After 24 Weeks

Once a pregnancy reaches 24 weeks, an abortion is only legal if a physician reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent your death or serious, irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.² A claim that you might otherwise engage in self-harm does not qualify.

The procedural requirements at this stage are stricter than earlier in pregnancy:

The physician performing the abortion must certify in writing, based on a personal medical examination, that the procedure meets the exception.
A second licensed physician must independently examine you and provide a separate written certification reaching the same conclusion.¹
The procedure must take place in a hospital, not a clinic or outpatient facility.
The physician must use the method giving the fetus the best chance of survival, unless that method would significantly increase the risk of death or major harm to you.
A second physician must be present to provide immediate medical care to the infant after delivery.

These requirements can be set aside only in a medical emergency where compliance is impossible.²

Medical Emergencies at Any Stage

In a genuine medical emergency, a physician can perform an abortion without first satisfying the 24-hour waiting period, the informed-consent disclosures, or the parental-consent requirement. Pennsylvania defines a medical emergency as a condition that, in the physician’s good-faith clinical judgment, either requires an immediate abortion to prevent your death or creates serious risk of irreversible impairment of a major bodily function if the abortion is delayed.⁴ Severe preeclampsia, hemorrhaging, and sepsis are the types of conditions the law contemplates. Even then, if there is time, the physician must still explain the medical reasons for proceeding.³

Who Can Perform the Procedure

Only a licensed physician can perform or induce an abortion in Pennsylvania. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants cannot, even though some other states allow them to. The physician must independently decide the abortion is medically necessary, or rely on a written statement from a referring physician who has made that determination. The law allows the physician to weigh your physical health, emotional well-being, psychological circumstances, family situation, and age in reaching that judgment. One narrow prohibition: an abortion sought solely because of the sex of the fetus cannot be classified as medically necessary.⁷

Medication Abortion and Its Separate Deadline

Medication abortion uses mifepristone followed by misoprostol and is FDA-approved through 10 weeks of pregnancy, or 70 days from the first day of your last menstrual period.⁸ You take the first pill at the medical office and the second at home.¹ If you want a medication abortion rather than a surgical one, 10 weeks is your window, not 24.

All of the standard Pennsylvania rules still apply: lab testing beforehand, the 24-hour waiting period after an in-person consultation, and parental consent for minors.¹ The FDA has allowed mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth and delivered by mail since 2023, but Pennsylvania’s in-person consultation requirement limits how much of the process can happen remotely. A pending federal lawsuit could also affect telehealth access to mifepristone nationwide, so this area of the law is unsettled.

1
Pennsylvania Department of Health. Abortion
2
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 Pa.C.S.A. 3211 – Abortion on Unborn Child of 24 or More Weeks Gestational Age
3
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 Pa.C.S.A. 3205 – Informed Consent
4
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 Pa.C.S.A. 3203 – Definitions
5
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 Pa.C.S.A. 3206 – Parental Consent
6
Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Abortion Laws in Pennsylvania – Questions and Answers
7
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code 18 Pa.C.S.A. 3204 – Medical Consultation and Judgment
8
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Questions and Answers on Mifepristone for Medical Termination of Pregnancy Through Ten Weeks Gestation