Pro-abortion activists celebrated, and the nation’s pro-life majority mourned, as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law one of America’s most aggressive and murderous abortion bills to date.
Following Governor Cuomo’s warning that he would hold up the state budget without passage of the bill, the New York legislature on January 22 approved the Reproductive Health Act, which deems that a pregnant woman has a “fundamental right to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to have an abortion.” The new law allows abortions to be performed when a pregnant woman “is within 24 weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health” — meaning that a pre-born baby may be killed at any time up to full-term and viable birth — at the medical discretion of a physician and the “choice” of the mother.
In a macabre celebration, Governor Cuomo ordered that New York City’s famed One World Trade Center and other landmarks be lit in pink as he fixed his signature to the new law. Calling the law’s passage an “historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values,” Governor Cuomo declared that “in the face of a federal government intent on rolling back Roe v. Wade and women’s reproductive rights … today we are taking a giant step forward in the hard-fought battle to ensure a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own personal health, including the ability to access an abortion. With the signing of this bill, we are sending a clear message that whatever happens in Washington, women in New York will always have the fundamental right to control their own body.”
Representative of the glee over the bill’s passage was the statement from feminist, pro-abortion icon Gloria Steinem, who declared: “A woman’s power to decide whether she will give birth or not is the single greatest determinant of whether she is healthy or not, educated or not, works outside the home or not, and how long she will live. This power has been taken away by patriarchy and racism, sometimes disguised as religion, yet it is our most basic democratic right. I’m thankful to Governor Cuomo and the New York State legislature for passing the Reproductive Health Act. It will codify Roe v. Wade in New York State law, guarantee women’s right to make decisions about our own bodies, and help create a future in which every child has the right to be born loved and wanted.”
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Taking the lead in speaking out for pre-born babies and their mothers was Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, who joined the state’s other Catholic bishops in signing a letter condemning the new abortion bill, writing that “our beloved state has become a more dangerous one for women and their unborn babies.” The bishops added that “our governor and legislative leaders hail this new abortion law as progress. This is not progress. Progress will be achieved when our laws and our culture once again value and respect each unrepeatable gift of human life, from the first moment of creation to natural death.”
Similarly, before the bill’s passage and days after Cuomo highlighted his supposed Catholic faith during his State of the State address, Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger penned an open letter pointing out that Cuomo’s pushing of aggressive abortion legislation “is completely contrary to the teachings of our pope and our Church. I shudder to think of the consequences this law will wreak. You have already uttered harsh threats about the welcome you think pro-lifers are not entitled to in our state. Now you are demonstrating that you mean to write your warning into law. Will being pro-life one day be a hate crime in the State of New York?”
Other pro-life leaders decrying the murderous new law were Lila Rose of Live Action, who wrote in a Facebook post: “New York leadership cheers today for the legalization of killing a baby old enough to be born — poisoning a 6-month-old to death in the womb and delivering her in pieces. This is the legacy of Roe v. Wade. It’s time to end this barbarism.”
Longtime pro-family leader Dr. James Dobson used passage of the murderous new law to challenge Americans who value life to pray and work for the protection of the pre-born. “This bill is not about reproductive health at all,” said Dobson. “It is pure barbarism on a scale rarely seen since the Middle Ages. There is a battle raging for millions of lives preordained by God Himself, and it is we who must stand for them so that they might have a chance at life.”
Photo: AP Images
