ISSUE & DEBATE

Planned Parenthood Hails,
Right To Life Decries Passage
Of Reproductive Rights Law

►FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Today the New York State Legislature moved our state forward with milestone legislation securing our reproductive health care and rights.
In the face of constant federal attacks and a new anti-Roe majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie led their houses in passing legislation keeping essential reproductive health care in our hands, with the Reproductive Health Act, protecting our right to abortion care.
We (at Planned Parenthood) applaud the leadership of the legislature, bill sponsors, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo for their commitment to securing our reproductive freedom and rights at the beginning of the 2019 legislative session.
As other states roll back abortion rights and access, the RHA enshrines the standard of Roe v. Wade in our state law. With over a decade of advocacy for the RHA, reproductive health care activists statewide are celebrating New York’s refusal to turn back the clock on safe, legal abortion and acknowledgment of the centrality of accessible reproductive health care.
“We cannot overstate how important it is for all New Yorkers to have the ability to control their own bodies and determine their own destinies, ” said Robin Chappelle Golston, state Planned Parenthood CEO. “As we continue to face challenges … on the federal level, it is paramount that New York is the beacon and state model of what reproductive health care should be.”

►FROM NY RIGHT TO LIFE

New York State Right to Life (NYSRTL) is saddened that New York now has what Governor Andrew Cuomo ironically but rightly referred to as “the most aggressive”abortion law in the country.
The Reproductive Health Act (RHA) was sold to the public saying it merely “updates” the law by codifying Roe vs. Wade into our statute, which is not true.
RHA has made abortion a “fundamental right” and prohibits all limits on abortion, which Roe vs Wade did not do.
Roe referred to a trimester view toward protecting life, whereas RHA has expanded abortion-on-demand in New York past 24 weeks – well past when unborn children feel pain, are viable, and suffer during the course of an abortion – and up to birth. This is inhumane.
While we look forward to the time when Roe vs Wade is overturned, under Roe various limits on abortion have repeatedly been upheld as constitutional and are favored by the majority of the public, including in New York. The Governor routinely calls people of good will concerned with how we treat human life extreme, whereas it’s this new law that is truly extreme.
NYSRTL will continue to work to expose the misinformation put forth about RHA, protect children and their mothers, protect the rights of pro-life persons to engage in life-saving activities and express their views, and to build a culture of Life in New York.