A bill making its way through the New York legislature would require universities in the state system to provide free abortions to students via “medication techniques” — a euphemism for the notorious and deadly “abortion pill.”
Introduced by State Assemblyman Harvey Epstein, a Manhattan Democrat, Assembly Bill 8743 states that every State University of New York (SUNY) school “shall make available to all students abortion by medication techniques onsite. This service shall be provided by medical professionals on staff at such student health centers or by a third party who has contracted with a university to provide such medical services.”
In his arguments for the legislation, Epstein said that without the convenience of the abortion pill, a SUNY student wishing to kill her baby might “have to travel to off-campus [abortion] providers, potentially missing classes and disrupting [her] studies.”
The pro-life news site LifeSiteNews.com explained that “medication” or “chemical” abortion actually requires two toxic pills — “one to deprive a developing pre-born baby of the nutrition he needs and one to induce contractions. The first pill is mifepristone, the second misoprostol. Chemical abortions are used on babies younger than nine or ten weeks old.”
Among those opposing the bill is the group Feminists Choosing Life of New York, whose executive director, Michele Sterlace-Accorsi, noted that the bill provides no alternatives to abortion. “What it doesn’t help finance are campus child care centers, or any kind of desperately needed prenatal care,” Accorsi told local reporters. “These are the impediments that interfere with women’s ability to carry unplanned pregnancies to term, to choose life for their children and also have a career.”
In fronting the abortion bill, New York is following the lead of California, which passed similar legislation in October, becoming the first state to require its public universities to dispense the abortion pill to students at no cost (except to taxpayers).
LifeNews.com noted that the abortion pill not only kills viable pre-born babies, but is also dangerous to the women who take it. “According to the FDA, at least 24 women died along with their unborn babies after taking the abortion drug,” the pro-life news source reported. “Complications include heavy bleeding, infections, and incomplete abortions that require surgery. The FDA documented at least 4,000 cases of serious complications, including more than 1,000 women who required hospitalization after taking the abortion drug.”
Given New York State’s demonstrated disregard for the lives of pre-born babies, passage of the legislation appears likely. In January, the state legislature passed, and pro-abortion governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law, the Reproductive Health Act, which mandates 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 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.
