There were two victims in the horrific attack earlier this month on Jennifer Irigoyen in New York City. But the state’s law recognizes only one of them.
Anthony Hobson allegedly dragged his former girlfriend into the stairwell of her Queens apartment building and stabbed her in the stomach, neck and torso. Irigoyen was in the second trimester of her pregnancy. Neither she nor her unborn child survived.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown initially announced that Hobson would be charged with second-degree murder as well as second-degree abortion, reasonably enough, considering that he stands accused of killing both Irigoyen and her child. But then, the DA’s office dropped the abortion charge in light of the state’s radical new pro-abortion law.
…a woman’s right to choose should be paramount in this state. Because in this state where they choose to live, it matters, and it matters to the point that we’re going to be leading the country. And if you don’t like that, then there are plenty of other places that have different laws, and we can vote with our feet if we want to.
Sen. Todd Kaminsky
See for yourself stating at 1:33:58 of the Jan 22 NYS Senate Session:
Sen. Kaminsky’s statement while voting in favor of the RHA: “there are plenty of other places that have different laws.”
Ashley McGuire wrote the following opinion piece originally published by USA Today.
A standing ovation for abortion? That’s what New York’s Reproductive Health Act got in the Senate chamber when it passed last week. Lawmakers and bystanders stood and applauded a law that legalizes abortion all the way up until birth, for any reason.
The left may be celebrating the bill’s passage, but it is wildly out of step with American sentiment on the issue. American support for late-term abortion continues to decline; one poll last year found that a mere 13 percent of Americans support abortion all the way into the third trimester. And most Americans don’t think abortion is something to celebrate, or “shout” to borrow from the pro-choice lobby’s public relations campaign. A majority of Americans, in fact, say abortion is immoral.
I can only imagine then, that seeing Democrats vigorously applaud abortion for 7-pound babies makes most Americans queasy. The same goes for lighting up One World Trade Center pink.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs the Reproductive Health Act on Jan. 22, 2019. (Photo: Darren McGee/Office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo via AP)
But the bill did more than extend abortion up until labor pains begin. The bill drops the requirement that only doctors perform abortion and decriminalizes violence against children in the womb. Even if it’s by a woman’s thug boyfriend.
“Safe” … scratch that. Legal and rare? Scratch “rare,” too. In New York City, one in three babies are aborted.
In legalizing and then celebrating the brazen removal of protections for not just unborn children, wanted or unwanted, but women as well, New York dramatized something the left is increasingly struggling to hide: they are only interested in legal abortion, full stop. Safe and rare be darned.
Abortion extremism grows even as use fades out
Strangely enough, the left’s litany of extremism on abortion continues to grow as its political efficacy wanes. Just this month, Democratic leaders in Congress announced they would push to overturn the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of taxpayer funding for abortion, despite the fact that a solid majority of Americans support it. Co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., promised the “boldest pro-choice legislation in history” and called the new Congress an opportunity to unleash a “a new era of reproductive rights.”
It certainly is a new era, one in which the Democrats are further away from the American people on abortion than they’ve ever been in history, and one in which American views on abortion are more nuanced than ever before. A slight majority of Americans continue to support legal abortion, but primarily in the first trimester, and it’s something that makes them morally uneasy. Democrats who have been tossed out of office for their extremism on the issue can see this.
In a recent podcast interview with The New York Times, former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-MO, who voted against the 20-week ban on abortion, lamented the party’s emphasis on the issue, saying Democrats should “shut up” about abortion. “It was not an issue that was going to bring me more votes,” she said.
The left celebrates death itself
No doubt former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who became known as “High Five Heidi” for her infamous high-five with Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer after voting against the 20-week ban, would agree.
Already, the four women who have entered the presidential race for the Democratic party from the U.S. Senate have made their abortion bonafides plain: All are in the New York school of abortion extremism. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., gets special kudos for her efforts to undermine crisis pregnancy centers in her home state while acting as attorney general, before the Supreme Court stepped in to protect their free speech rights.
What happened in New York last week is somber and tragic. But it was a teaching moment for us all in that it made plain the left’s position on a deeply divisive issue. As the bishop of Albany wrote in a letter to his parishioner, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, pleading him not to sign the bill, “Do not build this Death Star.”
The reality is that the left has moved past building Death Stars to celebrating death itself.
Nicole Russell of the Washington Examiner wrote Disgusting: New York not only legalized late-term abortions, but also celebrated like it won the Super Bowl.
On Tuesday, coincidentally the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the New York State Senate passed the Reproductive Health Act, and it was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The law, which is likely the most expansive abortion bill in the country, allows late-term abortion until the baby’s due date if it meets certain requirements. Not only is this kind of legal protection of late-term abortion an affront to the humanity of the unborn and the dignity of society, but New York celebrated it publicly, as if it had just won the Super Bowl.
The Bishop of Albany wrote the following open letter to his parishioner, Gov. Andrew Cuomo:
Dear Governor Cuomo,
Although in your recent State of the State address you cited your Catholic faith and said we should “stand with Pope Francis,” your advocacy of extreme abortion legislation is completely contrary to the teachings of our pope and our Church. Once truth is separated from fiction and people come to realize the impact of the bill, they will be shocked to their core. By that time, however, it may be too late to save the countless lives that will be lost or spare countless women lifelong regret.
The so-called Reproductive Health Act (RHA) will expand abortion under the pretenses of choice and progress, which, in fact, it will do little to enhance. At the same time, this legislation threatens to rupture the communion between the Catholic faith and those who support the RHA even while professing to follow the Church, something that troubles me greatly as a pastor.
Contrary to what its proponents say, the RHA goes far beyond Roe vs. Wade in its aggressive extremism. Granting non-doctors permission to perform abortions does nothing to advance the security and health of women. Condoning coerced or involuntary abortions by repealing criminal sanctions even in cases where a perpetrator seeks to make his partner “un-pregnant” through an act of physical violence does not represent any kind of progress in the choice, safety or health of women. Removing protection for an infant accidentally born alive during an abortion is abject cruelty, something most people of conscience would deem inhumane for even a dog or cat. Finally, allowing late-term abortions is nothing less than a license to kill a pre-born child at will.
It is very difficult to understand how you can align yourself with Pope Francis and so vehemently advocate such profoundly destructive legislation.
I find myself wondering how it can be viewed as “progress” to have gone from a society working to make abortion “rare” to one that urges women to “shout your abortion” as some advocates of this bill boldly announce.
How is it progress to ignore the harm that this will do, not only to innocent infants, born and unborn, but to their mothers? Does the heartache of so many New York women who have been pained by their abortion decisions matter? Is anyone listening to them? How is it really “pro-choice” when a law, which claims to guarantee choice, moves to expand only one option for women?
If abortion is deemed a fundamental right in New York State, will the State then still be able to issue licenses to pro-life nurses or physicians? Will health facilities which do not provide abortions be certified? Will the law allow that even one dollar be given to maternity services without offering women the “choice” of abortion? These are unanswered questions, but 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?
Our young people especially, who have seen their sonograms and who follow the discoveries the sciences have made, know the lies and the despair that proponents of such dangerous and death-dealing legislation are promulgating, even if blindly or unwittingly.
Giving up on life is no excuse for us as a responsible and compassionate people. In so doing, we evade the challenge of accompanying women and the families they are trying to nurture on the long journey. They deserve our courageous and ongoing support in creating conditions under which they will be free to bear and provide for their children.
As a society, we can and must do better. The teaching and intuition of our common faith readies us to help. It is an essential part of our mission to support the lives of all, especially the voiceless, the most vulnerable and marginalized, as Pope Francis always reminds us to do.
Let’s not bequeath to our children a culture of death, but together build a more humane society for the lives of all of our fellow citizens.
Mr. Cuomo, do not build this Death Star.
Sincerely yours,
Most Rev. Edward B. Scharfenberger Bishop of Albany
Governor Cuomo and proponents of the Reproductive Health Act claim that it simply codifies the US Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. The RHA goes far beyond Roe, and beyond any abortion legislation any state has ever passed in creating a new fundamental human right of abortion and contraception.
The historical corollary to a fundamental human right is a duty. The move from access to right is a slippery slope—the move from an individual choice to a public duty is never far behind. That’s exactly what happened in China 40 years ago. That is not Roe, that’s the RHA.
Roe v. Wade made abortion a legal choice. The RHA would make abortion a legal responsibility. Unless we want to redefine what a ‘right’ is, we shouldn’t consider the RHA. Roe declared that the child in the womb is not a person. The RHA refuses to consider the child at all.
We’ve done this before. We’ve refused to consider the personhood of categories of people—blacks, Native Americans, the mentally disabled, Jews. The powerful can do whatever they want with the sub-human: slavery, land-grabbing, forced sterilization, genocide… abortion.
Under current New York State law, it is a criminal act to perform an abortion on a ‘viable’ child in the womb. (There is another time to discuss the atrocity of the popular, dehumanizing notion of ‘viability.’ Every person bears the image of God regardless of his or her ability to “survive.”) Governor Cuomo and advocates of the Reproductive Health Act want to completely remove all references to abortion from the penal code.
Kermit Gosnell. Heard of him? He ran an abortion mill near Philadelphia, PA where he routinely performed late term abortions for 30 years. He caused the death of Karnamaya Mongar in 2009. In 2010 his clinic was finally shut down after a raid for suspicious oxycodone prescriptions revealed barbaric conditions: blood on the floors and walls, bags of aborted babies, jars full of severed baby feet. A house of horrors. Gosnell is currently serving a life sentence without possibility of parole. His story inspired this feature-length documentary, released in theaters October 2018.
If New York’s Reproductive Health Act were law in Pennsylvania, Gosnell could not have been convicted of homicide.
Douglas Karpen of Houston is currently under investigation by the FBI after four former employees came forward with pictures and testimonies indicating that he killed babies born alive, snipping their spinal chords or “twisting their heads off their necks with his own bare hands.”
After getting kicked out of Florida, James Pendergraft was caught illegally operating a mobile abortion clinic out of his van in South Carolina. Local authorities found bloody surgical implements “with tissue still attached” when they pulled him over for a traffic violation.
There’s no shortage of stories of late term abortionists behaving badly. Shouldn’t we hold them to a higher standard? Shouldn’t these actions be criminal?
An extreme minority of people think that unrestricted abortion is a good idea. And yet, the New York legislature is expected to pass a bill in January, called the Reproductive Health Act, totally deregulating abortion.
Imagine your 12 year old daughter wants an appendectomy and there’s a bill permitting nurses to perform appendectomies without parental consent. Do you think that the State legislature knows best when it comes to your daughter’s health and life? Wouldn’t you question the quality of care your daughter would receive?
The Reproductive Health Act represents just this kind of irresponsible overreach…government getting between parents and their children and patients and their doctors. Further, it expands abortion to all nine months of pregnancy and allows babies who survive an abortion procedure to be killed.
The NY Legislature released an updated version of the Reproductive Health Act for the 2019 session, and it’s even worse than previous versions. Here we quote the text of the bill itself and offer brief commentary.
The legislature finds that comprehensive reproductive health care [includes] contraception and abortion.
What happens if a doctor disagrees?
The New York Constitution and United States Constitution protect a woman’s fundamental right to access safe, legal abortion.
All abortion procedures are invasive. Certain abortion procedures require surgery. Cuomo’s Reproductive Health Act (RHA) is so radical that it reduces quality of care for women by allowing lower level medical providers to perform risky surgical procedures. Allowing non-physicians to provide surgery (say nothing of non-surgeon physicians) serves only to reduce quality of care for women, not enhance reproductive health.
According to the RHA a woman will be able to obtain an abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, representing higher-risk procedures, which have greater chance of complications, infection, and death. Fully licensed physicians in good standing are trained specifically for managing the condition of patients in potentially dangerous developments. Eliminating the requirement of physicians to perform these procedures increases the likelihood of life-altering and deadly complications for the woman.
Allowing non-physicians to perform an abortion ignores the overall health and well-being of the patient. Medicine is an art. It is the most humane of the humanities and most unscientific of the sciences. Physicians are trained to manage the entire scope of a patient’s health and well-being, employing this art. Lower-level providers are trained in technical skill, not the art of medicine. To employ lower-level providers in the performance of a single procedure virtually ignores the patient altogether. Allowing anyone to treat a patient around abortion alone disrespects the profession of medicine and the patient, treating her as an object to be manipulated—as a mechanic would a car.
Allowing non-physicians to perform surgery makes medicine what it is not. It reduces medicine to a set of impersonal skills to be applied to manipulate biochemical reactions. In so doing, it reduces the good purpose of medicine from the lofty heights of protecting the dignity of each individual to the meaninglessness of heartless, evidence-based, widget-turning, economically motivated population management. No thanks.
If legislators really cared about increasing the quality of care for women in reproductive health they would ensure that only board certified OB/GYNs in good standing could perform these complicated, risky procedures, instead of reducing the qualifications for practitioners.
