The issue has provoked an unusual running floor battle between two Republican senators - Bob Mensch, a former business executive from Montgomery County, and Pat Vance of Cumberland County, the legislature's only registered nurse.
Monday's 31-19 vote on the "study" amendment, proposed by Vance, was largely on party lines, but with notable Republican defections on sex and geographic lines. The measure picked up support of the majority of Republican women as well as several GOP senators from Southeastern Pennsylvania.
A final vote could come as early as Tuesday.
Vance, the lead sponsor of the original bill, said a study would shed light in the dispute over whether new requirements would shutter clinics. "Some say, 'Yes, it would shut them down'; others say, 'No, it won't,' " she said.
Mensch - who won passage last week of an amendment toughening the restrictions in Vance's original bill - said he was merely following the recommendations of the grand jury report last year that led to murder charges against Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. That report - which said Gosnell's clinic had gone uninspected for 17 years - prompted calls for tougher scrutiny of abortion clinics.
Mensch's amendment would require clinics that perform abortions after nine weeks of pregnancy to meet the same standards as the nearly 300 "ambulatory surgical facilities" that perform outpatient operations. Those facilities have larger surgical rooms, wider, hospital-grade elevators, and a registered nurse on-site at all times.
Mensch's language would make Pennsylvania's abortion clinic regulations among the nation's most stringent. Ten states, including New Jersey, have similar laws - but they apply only to abortions later in pregnancy.
