Stephen Freind
| Stephen F. Freind | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from the 166th district |
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In office 1976–1993 |
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| Preceded by | Faith Ryan Whittlesey |
| Succeeded by | Greg Vitali |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 22, 1944 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Republican |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Stephen F. Freind (born 1944) is a Republican politician who served in the Pennsylvania General Assembly as the state representative for Delaware County from 1976 until 1993, when he unsuccessfully challenged Arlen Specter in the 1992 Republican primary election. He was most notable for authoring a law that was presented as a tort reform measure but was actually designed to restrict abortion rights, that included "requirements that a married woman notify her husband, that there be a 24-hour wait before any abortion, and that doctors show patients a pamphlet with pictures of developing fetuses". It was mostly upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States except for the spousal notification provision in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
In 1988, Freind provoked controversy by claiming that it is 'almost impossible' for a woman to become pregnant through rape, as it causes her to 'secrete a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm'.
In 1984, a bill drafted by Freind was enacted into law that changed the way adults who were adopted as children access their original birth certificates. This became Act 195 of 1984 or Adoption Act of 1984. This act is a lesser-known component of Freind's abortion agenda. Freind was convinced that denying adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates would lower abortion rates. Freind's law made Pennsylvania the last of the 48 states at the time to enact discriminatory birth certificate policies for adults who were born in Pennsylvania and adopted as children. As of 2012, 44 states allow adult adoptees equal access to their original birth certificates.
In 1992 Freind decided to challenge Arlen Specter in the Republican Senate Primary allegedly because "according to the American Conservative Union" Specter "votes with conservatives only 34 percent of the time". There was widespread speculation at the time, however, that Freind actually ran for the Senate because he was afraid that after narrowly surviving both the Republican primary and the general election in 1990, he would lose his seat in the General Assembly in 1992. The underfunded and anti-abortion Freind lost to Specter by a 2:1 margin.
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