FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                   Contact: Samantha Levine

June 23, 2009                                                                  646-520-3510

 

 

“Yesterday, Governor David Paterson, long considered to be a supporter of women’s issues, announced that he ‘will call the Senate into session every day until the people's business is discharged.’

Today, NARAL Pro-Choice New York, on behalf of the women of our state, calls upon the Governor to live up to his commitment to these issues and place the Reproductive Health Act – landmark legislation to codify Roe v Wade in New York State – on the Senate’s agenda. We likewise call upon the Senators to live up to their commitments and affirm women’s health and rights by passing this bill.

Before the coup threw the Senate into disarray, the Reproductive Health Act (which has the support of 75% of New Yorkers across all party lines and demographics) was scheduled for a June 10 Senate vote. NARAL Pro-Choice New York had commitments from 34 senators, across party lines, to pass a clean bill. But, as we all know, an ill-advised power play two days earlier derailed the Reproductive Health Act, along with the state’s other pending legislation.

With this Extraordinary Session the Governor and the Senate now have an extraordinary window of opportunity to stand up for the women who helped elect them by standing up for women’s health and rights -- an issue that is most assuredly the ‘people’s business.’

Let's make sure the Reproductive Health Act is not among the casualties of this fiasco.”