Comptroller Stringer Statement Calling on the State Senate to Reconvene and Codify Roe v. Wade

“Abortion is health care. Birth control is health care. Family planning is health care.

“The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is a direct threat to the reproductive health and bodily autonomy of women. Right now, we are facing a future in which women’s healthcare options will be determined by a group of all male conservative extremists. It’s disgraceful.

“Abortion provisions belong in the health code, not the penal code. Overturning Roe v. Wade or even chipping away at abortion access will only put the health and safety of women – especially lower-income women and women of color – further at risk.

“In New York, we will stand against the Trump-Pence administration’s dangerous anti-choice ideology and fight to protect the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion. We urgently need to act. That starts with immediately safeguarding access to abortion in New York.

“Our state was an early leader on this front, but New York’s abortion law has not been updated since it was written in 1970, nearly fifty years ago and three years before Roe v. Wade. As it stands, New York State law criminalizes abortion after 24 weeks, forcing women in these rare cases to risk their health, and sometimes their livelihoods, to travel out-of-state for care. It’s unacceptable.

“The State Senate must reconvene and pass the Reproductive Health Act to expand reproductive health protections and codify Roe. Every moment they sit idly by, Washington moves to pull the nation backwards. We must act now to protect our vulnerable communities and our progressive values.”

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