URGENT
Please call NYS Senators
, at their home and Albany offices, urging them to VOTE NO TO THE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ACT. Calls must occur January 2- January 8.
The RHA may come to a vote as early as January 9th.
Please also write Letters to the Editor
(150-175 words)
and/or Op-Eds
(250 or 450 words). The pieces should contain one or more of the points below. Please send your article, with your name on it to me at
msafclny@gmail.com
ASAP
or
by January 7
for submission for publication.
(1) The RHA legalizes abortion 'on demand' during the second and third trimester of pregnancy
. NYS law currently prohibits aborting a viable human in utero, except to save a woman's life (NYS Penal Law 125.05.) The RHA's legislative intent ushers in a broad health exception for late term abortion in NYS. A broad health exception allows women to abort fully viable fetuses for essentially any reason; reasons that include economic or familial health, for example. Roe vs Wade 410 US 113 (1973), Doe vs. Bolton 410 US 179 (1973). According to Gallup Polling, for decades, the vast majority of Americans oppose second and third trimester abortion.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
(2) The RHA allows for viable infants born alive during a botched abortion to die without any treatment, by repealing NYS Public Health Law (PHL) 4164
.
PHL 4164 requires a duly licensed physician to "provide immediate medical care for any live birth that is the result of an abortion." According to Dr, William Cates, former Chief of Abortion Surveillance for the Center for Disease Control, hundreds of infants survive abortion every year in the US.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-OCONNOR/pdf/GPO-CHRG-OCONNOR-5-5.pdf
(3) THE RHA potentially endangers women's lives by permitting the performance of surgical late term abortions in facilities other than hospitals, and by individuals other than duly licensed physicians.
The RHA does so by repealing NYS Public Health Law (PHL) 4164, which requires abortions after the twelfth week of pregnancy occur "only in a hospital," and by repealing NYS Penal Law 125.05, which allows for only 'duly licensed physicians' to perform abortions, including late term abortions. According to a study published by Obstetrics & Gynecology,
Risk Factors for Legal Induced Abortion-Related Mortality in the United States
, the "risk of death" for "women obtaining legally induced abortions" "increase[s] exponentially by 38% for each additional week of gestation." The study further reveals that the "relative risk" of "abortion related mortality" was "76.6 at or after 21 weeks.
(4) The RHA re-victimizes victims of sex trafficking and domestic violence by repealing and amending all abortion related sections of NYS Penal Law 125.00-125.60, which allow for the prosecution of individuals who coerce an abortion, and for the prosecution of individuals for killing a wanted human in utero.
According to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine,
Acknowledging a Persistent Truth: Domestic Violence in Pregnancy,
domestic violence escalates in pregnancy, with significant consequences for women and their unborn children, including death.
Studies further reveal that both victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking undergo coerced abortions.
According to,
Associations Between Intimate Partner Violence and Termination of Pregnancy: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis,
published in PLOS Medicine, Women's Health Academic Centre, victims of domestic violence experience coerced abortions.
