“As a Roman Catholic, I am intimately familiar with the strongly held views of the church. Still, I do not believe that religious values should drive political positions.”
Catholics in line with the Catholic Church teaching holds to the religious value that human life possesses an intrinsic dignity.
Catholic religious values oppose the death penalty; oppose unjust wars; oppose degradation of our planet through increased carbon pollution; oppose unjust economic and social policies that perpetuate poverty and homelessness; opposes racism and segregation; oppose xenophobia; oppose the construction of walls that ignore the need for just immigration reform; oppose the separation of refugee families and the ware housing of undocumented children; oppose the mass incarceration of people of color due to injustice endemic to our current justice system sentencing that discriminates against people of color.
These are just some of the religious values upholding the very highest religious value — the intrinsic dignity of human life.
This preeminent religious value — the intrinsic dignity of human life — forms the “seamless garment” for all our religious values. It is for us the very bedrock religious value championed for the enactment of just laws and human freedom.
2
Many comments express concern that the law will be misrepresented and used by the right wing as a propaganda tool against Democrats.
I hope that Democrats cite individual stories (not identifying the person of course) where a woman could have died if the pregnancy had not been terminated. Additionally Democrats need to educate the public on the many ghastly disabilities/deformities that can manifest after 20 weeks.
8
This 75 year old woman wants all political party members and all churchgoers and so-called believers to mind their own business! Simple as that. If you don’t approve of or want an abortion, by all means don’t have one. Most of my life has been spent being told what I can and and cannot do by others, particularly by men, and I, for one, am sick and tired of it!
I know there are lots reasons a person might want to leave New York State, but in these times I’m grateful that I live in New York. And I’m at least as happy that we have Cuomo and a Democratic legislature.
And I’m simply blown away by the nerve and the arrogance of the Catholic Church, run by men who look the other way in the face of the abuse of nuns and boys and girls every day, to complain about Cuomo or anyone else. Cuomo makes me proud to be a New Yorker . Clean up your act, boys!!
34
Sometimes I worry
how white male and right wing religious is the US
Are not women worthy of equal rights and thus have control over their body?
last time I looked it takes a man a second to do his business and a woman 9 months and the rest of her life to deal with the results, whilst he goes to play golf, get remarried and boast of his prowess
19
It has to be said again, clearly, because the far left which now utterly controls the Democratic Party refuses to acknowledge it: over 80% of the American people believe abortion in the third trimester should be illegal. Completely. No ifs, ands or buts. The Democrats are the ones who are far left extremists on this issue, and Cuomo's attempt to Charisse characterize the 80% who disagree with him as the ones who are "far right" is the ultimate projection and dishonesty. Cuomo has taken a far left, extremist position that is overwhelming opposed by the people, including many in his own party. He needs to own up to that and defend it instead of resorting to shifty, dishonest rhetoric.
6
As a physician in Ohio who has occasionally been faced with a patient struggling with the decision of whether or not to have an abortion, I know how wrenching that decision can be for a woman. Following that is the physical struggle that woman has to go through at the entrance of an abortion clinic dealing with members of the religious right taunting and even threatening my patient.
After reading the enlightened essay by Governor Cuomo I could only wish he was instead the governor of Ohio where we have to deal with a governor, who I believe is also a Catholic, who takes a much different approach in dealing with abortion and even birth control.
I find it fascinating that Republicans are so driven to keep the government's hand out of a man's pocket while at the same time equally driven to place the government's hand in a woman's pants!
20
Anti-choice people use an effective marketing term that is just that, nothing more. Rather than repeat their misogynist propaganda, I call them anti-choice. They are "pro" controlling and limiting girls and women, and "pro" forcing their religious views onto others. They follow up their alleged concern for babies by withholding every social support that families and children might need. What happens to all the unwanted children of those who cannot afford to travel out of state for an abortion, you may ask. More abuse cases for family courts, more fodder for war, more prisoners for the profiteers. More suffering. That's what happens.
7
Attention Homo sapiens! Please consider the 99% of abortions.
According to data from the CDC and Guttmacher Institute for 2014:
- 926,200 abortions were performed in the US
- 61% of abortions were by women 20-29 years old
- 60% of abortions were by women with one or more previous live births. 40% by women with no previous live births.
- 44% of abortions were by women with one or MORE previous induced abortions. 55% were by women with no previous abortion.
PREVENTION. Access and effective use of birth control, will prevent the death of a viable/living human being where abortion becomes the choice for an unintended pregnancy. Hold yourself accountable and responsible for the right time to bring a life into the world. Talk with your doctor today.
Politicians, Support open access to affordable birth control for all to prevent unintended pregnancies. Enhance support for organizations and programs that show measurable results in effectively preventing unintended pregnancies, and that support the health and well-being of mother and child when life is the choice for an unintended pregnancy.
926,200 abortions in the US in 2014 alone. Every human life matters. We can do better.
2
Thank God Gov. Cuomo spoke up. I haven't see anyone of prominence, even commentators, respond to the sick lies about late-term abortion from Trump and other conservatives.
We all must state this loudly and frequently.
. Viable near-term fetuses are not being ripped from the wombs of American women, in New York, Virginia or elsewhere.
. Abortion is at an all-time LOW.
. Women facing medical catastrophe do not need more trap laws to delay action or hoops to jump through. They need to be able to make life-saving medical decisions privately with their doctors.
Trump promulgates many revolting lies. But to demagogue the health of women facing the tragedy of a pregnancy gone wrong is the sickest of the sick. I'm waiting for the "finally, sir, have you no decency" moment. I don't think it's coming.
There is no line of decency anti-abortion people will not cross, no detail they will not exploit, no disgusting lie they will not repeat.
15
Don't a lot of the people who want to see more guns in schools call themselves "Pro-Life"? Words LITERALLY don't mean much anymore.
6
Thank you Governor Cuomo. Your father could not have stated this important principle more eloquently. The so-called "pro life movement" is anything but, as your father so cogently observed in his opposition to the death penalty. I too am a Catholic man, and a feminist, and the anti-choice movement is in fact anti-woman. It's real purpose is to keep women in thrall to the legal superiority of men. It is so unnecessary. If you ever trusted your mother, who gave you life, you should trust her now. Let women make the choice and I guarantee you few if any will choose to abort for the wrong reasons. Thank you sir. Your parents are proud of you.
7
Sorry, as much as I support the right to an abortion up to a point. Viability means it IS a human and at that point a women's choice to KILL it ceases. Yes, a women can chose to abort, but the baby MUST be allowed to live and be given all medical support necessary. If we're going to allow killing a human because it's a burden, they we'll well on our way to empty out our nursing homes.
3
Most of the ultra-rich right wing, including Trump, don't give a hoot about abortion one way or another. But you can't win power with 1% of the vote, so they must inflame identity politics to get the working class voters to vote for them and against their own economic interests.
6
What I am seeing right now looks like a complete bunch of malarkey, to borrow Joe Biden's phrase.
There has been in the mainstream media a virtual blackout on the subject of this new law in New York State. I know because I searched for it last night and found no coverage other than non-main stream publications.
3 things:
1. On the cover of this paper, Pam Bullock claims to clarify what late term abortion is, only to falsely state that the new law permits abortions up to the 24th week if there is no viability. Not only is this wrong and not considered late term, but she then provides a link to a law - from 2017!
The rest of the piece she uses the same talking points as Cuomo, in fact, they play off each other. (Always suspicious.)
The first clue I had about this new NY state law was when on NPR a moderator said she heard Gov Northam say something callous about late term abortions that got a former classmate unhinged and prompted him to post those racist photos. But the interviewee sidestepped the answer and I never found out what he said.
2. Stop the fiction of mothers' lives suddenly in danger in the third trimester. Just lift the baby out - end of problem. Adoption is a reasonable option, certainly preferable over the callous and selfish destruction of a human being. Many would be happy to have this baby that suddenly isn't wanted anymore.
3. Democrats are making a huge mistake in their all or nothing approach in Roe v Wade.
Late term abortion is never okay.
2
Its a little thing but, to be clear, this is Mike Pence's assault on abortion rights, Trump could care less about it, other than exploiting it to placate the evangelical base.
5
Late term abortion is morally wrong . Cuomo would rather pander to extremists. As a Catholic and a person of moral character , I think any one who advocates it, is sick in the head. Anyone who wants abortion should either know at the beginning of the pregnancy that they want to terminate it or if they find some defect through testing some what later but waiting till the end of the pregnancy except if the mothers life is in danger is just barbaric.
2
Bravo! I admire your courage to go against your Church, in favor of Constitutional principles and public service.
I wish other elected officials thought and acted that way.
Thank you for the bill, the essay. but shouldn't you fund the new election law?
5
Well explained, Governor. Exactly my thoughts and beliefs. It is never an easy decision to abort a pregnancy but the most difficult is when it is almost full term and the Mother's life is threatened. Even at that moment, many families decide to take the pregnancy to full term, because perhaps, they pray for a miracle. That is their choice. That is the point of Roe. It is the woman's choice.
12
I think the liberals are very concerned that abortion is finally under attack and are right to be afraid. I also think the reason for this concern is because President Trump spoke strongly against abortion at all stages of pregnancy last night. Maybe this is why we have two articles on this in today's paper.
He is the first president that I can remember to ever speak out on the abortion topic during a State of the Union address. And he did so forcefully without a minute's hesitation. Of course, this was one of the campaign promises he made and had a lot of support from the Republicans. They were ecstatic when this came up and stood up in approval and applauded in full support.
To his credit President Trump was brave to speak out against abortion but then he had a captive audience. The Republicans are the pro life party and have been successful in getting states to pass more restrictions on abortion. This is why we see pro abortion rights folks in the Democratic Party passing and trying to pass late term abortion legislation in their states. They see the abortion debate turning against them and abortion rights slipping away before their eyes. They are very worried and are trying to preserve what they have accomplished. They are losing the abortion battle and know it.
Pro life advocates are confident that they will continue to have support which has made their hard earned efforts worth that much more. They finally see they are making progress. They have hope.
2
@WPLMMT: Wealthy women will always have access to abortion. And poor desperate women will continue to have abortions whether they're legal or not under less-than-ideal circumstances. So, if abortion is made illegal, some desperate poor women will die as a result of botched abortions. I doubt you care much about this issue though, WPLMMT.
7
Let's be honest, it's not the 1950s that the so-called evangelical and Catholic Christians want to take women back to, it's the 1850s. They'd no doubt like a lot of other things about that era too.
13
Thank you, Governor Cuomo, for offering a vigorous defense of women's right to choose. You have risen immeasurably in my esteem because of it. It is something we hear too seldom from Democrats, who are supposed to be the defenders of women's rights.
13
Here is some data: Completed weeks of gestation at birth as related to Chance of Survival:
26 weeks - 80 to 90%; 27 weeks > 90%; 30 weeks >95%; 34 weeks >98%. We can perform heart surgery on a fetus after 22 weeks. Under our criminal justice code there are two counts of murder or vehicle man slaughter for killing a pregnant woman. While, thank G-d, there are very few women who would want to murder a healthy baby, the law that allows for such an evil act is an unspeakable travesty. There is no specific language in the law that would prevent the late term abortion for the situations where the life of the mother is not in direct danger. The third trimester abortion for the reason of economic or psychological distress is not a choice, but a gruesome murder of innocent for the sake of convenience. The Vermont law takes it even further: "It is legal for an abortion to be performed in Vermont at any stage of pregnancy for any reason or for no reason." Once again, the objections are not about very special circumstances when the life of a woman is in danger. The problem is that the law would allow the murder of babies, and we can't have that even if this kind of monstrous abuse would be rare - even possibility of this should not be allowed by law. Governor, you normalize and celebrate in the most unseemly fashion a heinous act of murder - it goes against basic human morality and the basic ideas in Judeo-Christian tradition upon which our country has been founded.
9
Under normal circumstances I am pro choice, but this is clearly a morally reprehensible law. The idea that a baby can be killed, yep killed, as in murdered, up to the point of birth is disgusting. At that point in time it is not about the mother it is about the child. Science has made great strides in the viability of a child and premature birth. We now understand that a child is viable in the middle of the second trimester, at that point it is a living being. This bill does no less than legitimize infanticide. For a Progressive group that claims to care so much about human rights we are completely ignoring the rights of the child in this circumstance. This hypocrisy is something the Left will need to come to terms with before they can be taken seriously again.
10
A late-term abortion is ALWAYS a tragedy. Not just "taken lightly" but always a tragedy. Nobody knows this better than the parents and the physician who undertakes the procedure. I would think the Christian thing would be offer condolences.
113
When did blatant lies become "falsehoods"?
4
Trump has no beliefs other than playing to the boondocks constituency that gave him the White House while trailing by 3 million votes. He plays to win and knows how to take advantage of every angle that twists the odds in his favor. Right vs. wrong does not even enter into the equation.
5
One of the many reasons so many people turned out for the midterm was due to the extreme conservative values being pushed by this administration.
Republicans, be careful of the decisions you put forth. Women constitute the majority of the electorate, came out to vote against your platform and will never be shoved back again. You have been warned.
8
If I told you that the chance of getting food poisoning at the state capital building cafeteria was 'extremely rare' would you eat there? Maybe. If I told you it was 1 in 100 (i.e. multiple people of the hundreds that eat there every day get food poisoning), would you eat there? No way. 1% is not 'extremely rare'.
Governor Cuomo,
The Reproductive Health Act guarantees a woman's right to abortion in the first 24 weeks of a pregnancy or when the fetus is not viable, and permits it afterward only when a woman's life or health is threatened or at risk.
The RHA changed from when a women's life is at risk to "when a woman's life or health is threatened or at risk".
How is "or health" defined? How is "threatened or at risk" defined?
We understand what "risk to the mother's life" is. With the change to "or health is threatened or at risk", under what scenarios does this allow for an abortion to proceed?
Does RHA make it legal (at any point in the pregnancy and other then risk to the mother's life) to abort a living and/or viable pre-natal human being?
4
I am pro life on a personal basis, but ABSOLUTELY pro choice when it comes to civil policy and laws.
"Most observers of the Supreme Court believe the question is not if Roe will be overturned, but when."
I have right along been one of these, believer that first Obergefell (Same sex Marriage rights) will fall as a test case and then if there is not a ferment of total revolution in the air Roe will also, returning those rights to states so there will be a very few pockets in the U.S. where abortion is legal and obtainable.
There is one glimmer of hope. Three cases, each from a separate state came in front of the Supremes, needing four votes to agree to hear them. All three involved the right of a state to totally defund Planned Parenthood, a long stated goal of the anti abortion crowd. Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch all voted in lockstep to hear the cases, hoping to overturn lower courts who have ruled that States can not totally defund all aspects of PP. Roberts voted against, presumably because he is so concerned with his legacy and not presiding over one after another 5-4 rulings by his court. Kavanaugh was, at least for me the very surprise vote. I would have expected him to be the 4th vote to bring the cases to SCOTUS, but he voted not to hear them. Could he end up being a dark horse swing vote? I pray mightily for that to be true.
I am a retired R.N. who has voted for the Democratic ticket my entire life, but because I worked 3 weeks filling in for my nursing registry at an abortion clinic (had to quit because it sickened me), I realize there are times when a woman should decide for herself to terminate the pregnancy - for various reasons like rape or a fetus that testing shows to be in some way not developing normally. However, the indiscriminate ending of a life (yes, that developing fetus is very much alive), is, in my opinion, wrong! There are many other options - adoption, leaving the baby at a nearby fire station where no questions are asked, asking the father's family if they want the baby, AND in a normal life span, nine months is a relatively short time. Here's another thing, in my experience working the night shift in hospitals over many years, on three occasions, women in the last part of their lives who were having trouble sleeping, have confided in me about abortions they had decades earlier - this is something women don't forget - one elderly lady asked me if I thought she would see this child "on the other side." I told her I didn't know.
7
One can have your point of view and I respect your experiences and your feelings but outlawing it outright is overreaching and enables people who want to reach into the women’s head, heart and uterus to control them rather than provide birth control financial and emotional supports and hope to show that society thinks it a life worth protecting rather than a mother’s family and future(including having more children) worth destroying.
14
Cuomo is manipulating data, aided by almost no actual fact-checking, to make it look like in practice late term abortions are about severe fetal anomalies or life endangerment. Most are not. This is an intentional smokescreen, and very few in the pro-abortion side will admit it.
6
@TD
Please include a link for the source of your information, including what you are defining as "late term."
13
The problem the "choice" side now has is that Cuomo and Northam, with Tran, finally revealed the true agenda that has been theirs all along. The child is not an end, but a means to fulfill a desire. The child, even well past any doubt of viability, may be killed, even after delivery, in the case of Tran/Northam, taking out the whole notion that this is about a woman's control of her body. If a pregnancy is full term or nearly, the woman's body has been through the process. In Virginia, they even revealed that a child may be killed when no longer connected bodily at all. This has been about wanting to rear a child all along. In light of the data that show most late term abortions have nothing to do with anomalies and health endangerment, the exploitation of tragic cases to cover the nature of the majority of cases is even more cynical and craven.
6
Much appreciation to the Governor! I too am Catholic and agree and strongly believe in the absolute separation of church and state. I measure every single encroachment on women's rights; I think of these actions as a threat to our wholeness as human beings. I am old enough to recognize and to truly understand and freedom is not free ... that it is in fact sustained by the protection of laws. And that laws themselves are only as strong as we, the people, make them. The Act is needed and necessary.
10
I've had it with a serial adulterer who is a bragging sexual assaulter who hires porn stars to have sex with, telling women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. Trump is a disgusting sexual predator who has no business telling us what to do.
24
Abortion has no place in the legislature. America is one of the few countries where abortion is considered a crime. In Europe it is freely practiced
as a civil right. And it is a civil right
20
Neither Pope, nor priest, or politician should have the right to legislate the what should be between a woman and her doctor, and no one else.
23
As a pro life Catholic woman, I will continue to speak out against abortion. If Governor Cuomo, a so-called Catholic politician can express his pro choice opinion, I can certainly express my pro life views. And I will until I take my last breath. It is the Catholic laity who has been on the forefront of the pro life cause since Roe v Wade became law. Thankfully other faiths have joined in and even those with no faith have joined our ranks. We have also had priests and nuns join with us. This is too important to ever take lightly. And we will not. All lives matter even those in the womb and beyond.
6
@WPLMMT
Speak out by all means. but you have no right to impose your opinions on others. The irony is, of course, that codifying your view into law will not reduce the number of abortions; the poor will resort to back alleys and the well connected will carry on as usual. And so-called late-term abortions are really interventions in problem pregnancies, needlessly prolonging which can impose immeasurable and needless additional suffering upon an already traumatized family.
And I won't even get into the logical consequences of criminalizing abortion, one of which is to cast a cloud of suspicion, and perhaps even criminal sanctions, against women who suffer miscarriages. When Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid's Tale in 1985, the idea of religious zealots having captured the United States government seemed preposterous. Now, not so much.
If you truly want to reduce the number of abortions, how about actively campaigning to change the Church's position on birth control? And if all lives matter in the womb "and beyond", how about campaigning to have your favorite party reverse its tendency to cut social services in order to coddle its wealthy donors.
Although I find that the Catholic clergy are at least consistent, in my experience the anti-abortion faction of the laity suddenly loses its concern for life once it has been born.
21
No matter what your beliefs, New York itself opened the door to insensitivity and political posturing on this issue by publicly celebrating the passing of this legislation. Given the extremely sensitive nature of this issue, Governor Cuomo is just a guilty as Donald Trump of political posturing and inflaming an already exacerbated political discourse.
11
@Karen Nagy: People were celebrating the fact women still maintain control over their own bodies.
5
Thank you, Governor Cuomo, for the Act and this written piece. I am a feminist, pro-choice Catholic. The choice of what to do with a woman’s body is up to the woman. Not government. Not anyone else. While I am not “for” abortion and would not wish it upon anyone, I cheered along with many people when I heard the news of the NY law. My 17-year old daughter cheered, and my 21-year old son was appalled at our behavior. I explained to him what the happiness was about. It is NOT about being happy for an abortion. It is all about being happy that the judgment of a woman, her ability to dictate what happens to her body and in her life, is brought center stage. I think most people who feel their individual rights have been taken or threatened, and now may be restored, would understand and rejoice. It is not about aborting but about respect for a woman’s value. And lest you say that the baby (embryo, fetus) has value, a “baby” is only life in the mother’s womb because it is dependent upon the woman’s body. The woman is living in the world, the baby is not. I hope that we can get beyond pointing the finger and judgment, and on to loving and being compassionate for others, of trying to see the plight of others that brings them to difficult choices, and care for the people living in this world as much as their unborn embryo, fetus.
182
From the point of conception the human doubles in size each day. The mother does not. When the placenta connects to the uterine lining it does so with trophoblastic cells, the only cells in the human that invade and then stop. Only when pregnant with a separate human will the mother have these cells in her body. A person in coma for nine months completely dependent on others for life is still human during that dependence. To suggest that a fetus is not human with its own separate life is to muddy. the waters of an already vexing human problem. A rose is a rose whatever one chooses to call it.
17
@Allison Cook
Here is some data: Completed weeks of gestation at birth as related to Chance of Survival:
26 weeks - 80 to 90%; 27 weeks > 90%; 30 weeks >95%; 34 weeks >98%. We can perform heart surgery on a fetus after 22 weeks. Under our criminal justice code there are two counts of murder or vehicle man slaughter for killing a pregnant woman. While, thank G-d, there are very few women who would want to murder a healthy baby, the law that allows for such an evil act is an unspeakable travesty. There is no specific language in the law that would prevent the late term abortion for the situations where the life of the mother is not in direct danger. The third trimester abortion for the reason of economic or psychological distress is not a choice, but a gruesome murder of innocent for the sake of convenience. The Vermont law takes it even further: "It is legal for an abortion to be performed in Vermont at any stage of pregnancy for any reason or for no reason." Once again, the objections are not about very special circumstances when the life of a woman is in danger. The problem is that the law would allow the murder of babies, and we can't have that even if this kind of monstrous abuse would be rare - even possibility of this should not be allowed by law. Governor, you normalize and celebrate in the most unseemly fashion a heinous act of murder - it goes against basic human morality and the basic ideas in Judeo-Christian tradition upon which our country has been founded.
12
@Curiouser: A fetus is not a fully formed human that is simply flatting around in a woman's body. It is a part of her body and dependent on her.
12
He's being disingenuous. I looked up this law, you can simply read the Wikipedia entry if you don't have time to read the law.
The NY law removed two previous requirements for a late term abortion: it replaced the requirement for a mother's life to be in danger with wording that said her "health" (including mental health) are being threatened by the imminent birth. Furthermore it removed the requirement that a doctor document the threat.
This law therefore allows an abortion at any time during a pregnancy on the basis of the mother's "health" being threatened without a doctor documenting how and how seriously her life is threatened. Suspicion of post-partum depression is enough.
I am pro-choice but my interest here is the truth. If I'm wrong point me where I can learn my errors. But don't write back with irrelevant references to fetal deformities. No where does this bill mention this where I could find it.
Laws are not passed with permission to ignore possibilities because you or Cuomo think they're not realistic. You can not justify a law by stating "that would never happen" as in "no one aborts a healthy baby at 38 weeks." Laws make actions legal. That's exactly what this bill does.
And it does happen.
Cuomo is disingenuous and wrapping himself in Catholicism is disgusting.
Let's have an honest discussion of what these bills do. Society has the right to regulate how fetuses are treated.
Let's debate the truth.
14
This is a difficult issue. Andrew Cuomo's article has merit, although reasonable people will disagree on this topic. What is completely clear is that Donald Trump should have no say in this matter - he has no gravity, no depth.
1
Men have the same right to procreate as women. After consensual sex both the father and the mother need to consent to have an abortion, right? Perhaps Governor Cuomo and the Democratic party are simply pandering to feminists. It is time to man up in many different ways.
6
No, the man does not get to decide what will happen to the woman's body. In a healthy relationship, of course the two would make the decision together.
If a man wants children, he should make sure he's in a healthy relationship. If he just wants to knock up women and not be a dad to those kids, he has no say at all.
14
@Eugene Patrick Devany
You have been educated on this topic every time you post on an article about abortion. You continue to post that men have "the same right to procreate" as women, but don't seem to be aware that men do not gestate babies. You appear to be unwilling or incapable of considering new information, as numerous people, myself included, have pointed this out to you many, many times.
The father's "right to procreate" does not include the use of a woman's body. He doesn't get to use it for sex against her will, and he doesn't get to use it to gestate his fetus against her will.
Only the woman's body gestates; therefore, only the woman decides if she gestates.
7
@Eugene Patrick Devany
Uh, no. Men do not have the same right to procreate as women. Women have uteruses. Men don't. Sorry.
5
There was a movement a few years ago called "celebrate your abortion" that was promoted by celebrities. These women who all had had abortions were telling other women to be proud of their abortions and speak up about them. If that isn't sick and perverted and doesn't bother people, then we are doomed as a society.
Governor Cuomo is no better than these women and is promoting more abortions within New York. Being labeled as the abortion capital of the world is not something in which to be proud. Even pro choice women and men think late term abortion and infanticide are scandalous. People must speak out against this evil as loudly if not more so then those who celebrated their abortions. If we allow this horrendous abortion bill to stand, we only have ourselves to blame. I am 100 percent positive that the pro life movement will not allow this bill to go unnoticed. They will add this travesty to their cause and speak out firmly and continuously until it is banned.
10
@WPLMMT
The terminology used during that campaign was "Shout your Abortion," NOT "Celebrate Your Abortion." However, that didn't stop the anti-choice side from immediately characterizing it exactly the way you did.
The purpose was to try to counter the constant shaming women endure over this issue. Your post is a great example, calling women "sick, perverted, and evil."
6
Why are we not having a lengthy discussion about men not using condoms?
This is a way for every man to reduce the abortion rate the very next time he has sex.
14
@AmesNYC: Because ultimately this is about controlling women's sexuality and bodies. Otherwise, people who wanted to limit abortions would actually support birth control and sex ed. Instead they want to shame and control women.
5
The definition of insanity: Anyone who believes that murders and rapists should get free meals and a place to sleep but babies should be killed at our convenience. How absolutely vile, disgusting and savage.
My sister had a fetus that died en vitro. She was induced and gave birth to her baby boy. If a child is not viable outside of the womb, then deliver them, care for them and let nature take it's course. It's what civilized people do.
9
So would not the decision to deliver and care for a non-viable fetus be made by the mother and her doctor? Would you want the government involved in that decision?
6
Are you saying that it’s better to allow a newborn baby, terminally ill straight from the womb, to suffer horribly until “nature takes its course”- and to force its parents to watch helplessly? In your mind, this is more humane than a medical procedure to terminate the pregnancy quickly and with minimal pain? I’m floored.
4
Cuomo's very long comment depends entirely on one word: "merely." It is amazing what a single word can do even when it has no basis in fact. Putting it in print, saying it out loud, gives it weight it does not deserve.The new law goes far beyond "merely" codifying the present law and he knows it. It allows for late term abortions under much less rigorous conditions.
7
It is sad that so many Americans find their moral compass in taking away women’s rights to be moral agents. Late-term abortions are medically necessary, not just for the sake of the mother’s health and life, but also for the sake of the future human life that would be lived in pain and suffering if not terminated in utero. Let’s speak plainly here. Have you ever seen a child hooked up to tubes and machines, lying alone in the hospital, unable to think, speak, walk or eat on its own? Have you seen families torn apart because they cannot cope with the same child brought home without any social support? We all hear miraculous stories of severely premature babies who survive - but have you seen what these babies become ten, fifteen or twenty years on? As a mother, I take on huge responsibility when I decide to create a life. It is my duty to make sure that this life is as free of suffering as possible.This is not a plea for infanticide: once the child is born and its brain starts to develop, there may be some glimmerings of personhood inside, ad we should respect it. But a fetus has no neurological capacity for self-awareness. Why do you want to impose existence upon it if it is severely damaged? In the last act of “King Lear”, Ken says of the attempts to revive the king: “He hates him
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.” Anti-abortionists hate both women and children
11
Can a woman feeling distraught, overwhelmed and traumatized in her emotional health over her child being the "wrong" sex have an abortion until the end the 9th month? Please cite the exact reference in the RHA banning such an act.
7
While we’re at can you point out a single time that has ever happened?
While we’re at it let’s talk about how a woman has a right to her body and everything inside of it.
While we’re at it let’s discuss the morality of abortion when I have some serious questions about church molestation cases, reverend.
While we’re at it let’s talk about how the religious community has contributed nothing to candidates who propose government assistance to mothers who decide to keep their babies.
5
My daughter worked in the pediatric heart NICU on her last rotation of nursing school. The heart surgeons do surgeries at the incubators of the infants. She tells me that they had infants life flighted in from all over the Bible Belt who were not viable. They would never be viable. They were on ECMO. Which is a cardiac by pass. Hearts completely missing chambers and ventricles. Then their are serious chromezone issues not just Downs.
They wait on the mother to make the 4-8 hr drive after having a c section before turning off the machines. When she arrives they find out the rural or small city hospital doctor did a hysterectomy. Which wouldn’t have been needed if this non viable pregnancy had been terminated when the first tests back at 15 wks showed the issues. They get ask can’t you do a heart transplant, no! Aren’t the other organs viable no.
Medicaid, just spent millions of dollars!!
7
@MJS
This is the kind of heartbreaking situation Governor Northam was answering the question about, that everyone is twisting out of context. He was not talking about letting a healthy baby die. But we can't have grown-up discussions about complex issues, can we?
3
Gov. Cuomo still talks like he hasn't read the new law.
To terminate a pregnancy beyond 24 weeks only needs one doctor to agree the mother's health is a concern. The Governor neglects to quote polls showing that a majority of Americans do not support abortions beyond 24 weeks unless the mother's life is in danger.
I don't have to play to a 'base', I'm a pro-life Democrat who votes to protect life from the womb to natural death. Pro-life, for me, includes opposition to the death penalty, support for migrants, aid to the poor, access to health care for everyone and other causes that are part of the Democratic Party platform.
My religious beliefs are part of what helps me stand for my political beliefs. Gov. Cuomo may have to implement a law his religious beliefs don't support, but he didn't have to support and advocate for a law that contravenes those beliefs.
6
@bob" "To terminate a pregnancy beyond 24 weeks only needs one doctor to agree the mother's health is a concern. "
One doctor is plenty. How many legal medical procedures do you, as a man, need for multiple doctors to sign off on?
And Catholics have little moral ground to stand on when they protected pedophiles raping kids for decades.
4
Thank you Gov. Cuomo! I hope the rest of the states hear what you say. I heard JFK have to make the same pledge to honor the Constitution and not be subject to the Catholic Church. Hard to believe you had to say all this so many years later.
For some reason, the right and far right seem to think it is their job to convert the nation to their way or the highway. Their intolerance of other people's belief systems is awful. Separation of church and state is key and our founding was based on that!
7
I wish we could someday have an honest debate about abortion. The fact is, late-term abortions sometimes result in unintentional live births, and that the babies are "allowed" to die (although they may be "comforted" before they die). At that point, the mother's right to control her own body has obviously ended. We are talking about infanticide, pure and simple.
OK, so this occurs very rarely. But it does occur. Whether a baby/fetus happens to be inside or outside the vaginal canal hardly seems to matter, but even if we're talking only about fully delivered babies, it happens. Anybody who denies that is either willfully ignorant or lying.
Having said that, those at the other end of the spectrum overstate their case when they equate a recently fertilized ovum with a baby. They may sincerely believe that, but the more they adhere to that position, the less likely they are to win broad support, and the more they push their opponents to the opposite extreme.
Despite the polarization of the debate, I suspect that most Americans would agree on some middle ground. That's what used to be called compromise. But as with other issues, the Americans in the middle do not control the terms of the debate these days.
1
Restating the position of his father, Governor Mario Cuomo. And Cardinal John O'Connor attacked Mario Cuomo relentlessly.
1977?
"The Church has never been this aggressively involved [in politics]. Now you have the Archbishop of New York saying that no Catholic can vote for Ed Koch [the N.Y.C. mayor], no Catholic can vote for [City Comptroller] Jay Goldin, for [City Council President] Carol Bellamy, for [U.S. Senator] Pat Moynihan or Mario Cuomo – anybody who disagrees with him on abortion. . . .The Archbishop says, “You Mario, are a Catholic who agrees with me that abortion is an evil”. . . .The Archbishop says, “OK, now I want you to insist that everybody believe what we believe.”
1990, in the NY Times:
"The Cardinal once said he could not see how ''a Catholic in good conscience can vote for a candidate who explicitly supports abortion,'' while Mr. Cuomo has said a public official is sworn to uphold the Constitution, which he said allows for a diversity of religious and personal views on the issue."
Your desire to be President yourself someday is worth even this? Not good enough you are destroying your own State's tax base you want to be Ex-Communicated too? No one is 'packing the Court'. Some on the Left are planning on doing just that if they ever regain power but no one is doing it now. New York and Virginia just shot democrats in the foot with these bills. Voters are absolutely disgusted at this agenda. It will not win elections but does reveal where we are headed as a Nation and that is a very dark place when laws like this begin to get passed.
2
The entire abortion "debate" comes down to one question: is abortion the taking of the life of a human being? The answer is yes. Once you answer that question, there are no others.
4
@Cynthia Starks It's about viability of the fetus and the inherent human rights of the pregnant woman. Does her health not matter to you? Do you really want to force someone to carry a stillborn baby to term?
11
@Cynthia Starks actually the answer is “no” but let’s assume you are right. Would you deny me the right to take a human life in self-defense? If somebody breaks into my house, don’t I have the right to shoot them? If a foreign entity inhabits my body and threatens my life and/or health, why shouldn’t I kill the intruder?
9
@Cynthia Starks: What about the quality of life of that child if it's unwanted? If mom is addicted to meth and has been using throughout her pregnancy? If the father is an abusive guy who already beats 'mom'? If mom already has three kids and works a minimum wage job? If she doesn't have health insurance? You don't know the life circumstances of other people; it's not your decision.
5
As about a perfect statement as could be made about "separation of church and state;" vital to a democracy and free thought. Your father would have agreed.
5
Cuomo is wrong. This is not a religious issue. It's a human rights issue. Abortion is a civil right for the woman, but it's a human rights violation for the child. It's merely oppression begun by the patriarchy pushed down. Either all human life has the same intrinsic value, or none does. If human life isn't equal, wherever it exists, then the tyranny of the majority gets to decide which lives to protect and which lives can be snuffed out when those on whom they depend decide they no longer want to be burdened.
5
Thank you, Gov. Cuomo, for keeping your personal beliefs and laws regarding your constituents separate. I am not sure how we got to this place of so many believing that because they have a personal belief they can impose that on an entire state or nation.
9
If I don't have the freedom to choose what happens to my body, I don't have any freedom at all. Women are not baby making machines. It is the woman's choice and only the woman's choice and if her life and/or health is in danger, it should be her choice right up to the end. What if she has other children? It should be her choice as to whether she is alive and healthy for them.
17
Thank you Governor Cuomo for the position you have taken to support Roe v. Wade and codify this into New York State law. I appreciate how you have stayed on message - in this Op-Ed and on the Brian Lehrer show. I am proud to live in New York State, even with the elimination of the SALT deduction.
7
I guess you can afford to be proud to live in high-taxed NY.
1
No Mr. Cuomo. Your Trojan horse law must be rejected. Maybe there are limits now, but we are pushing the envelope further and further What was unthinkable 50 years ago is the accepted norm today.
Which one of your successors will sign the post birth. termination bill into law? What is unthinkable today ---
6
According to Gallup and numerous other polls, over 80% of the American people believe abortion should be illegal in the third trimester. 65% believe it should be illegal in the second trimester. Those numbers have been consistent for 20 years. The Democrats are far to the extreme left of the people on this subject.
6
@Joe Most folks against later abortions have no idea why they are sometimes necessary. Uninformed opinions mean nothing.
15
No one who advocates for the overturning of Roe v. Wade can honestly call themselves “pro-life,” just as no one can honestly say that abortion is a reasonable method of birth control.
Nevertheless, America has had years of documented history which plainly demonstrate what results from criminalized abortions, and how disproportionately these effects impact marginalized communities.
Denying women access to a medical procedure because it is in conflict with one’s religious beliefs is a very slippery legislative slope. “Religious liberty” is a double-edged sword, and America’s theocratic leanings are already quite noxious.
10
The sheer cynicism of Trump and the GOP knows no bounds. The Big Lie technique is Trump's go-to answer for everything.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/6/1832716/-About-Trump-s-Playing-The-Abortion-Card-Last-Night#comment_72857510
4
“It’s worth recalling, that in 1999, long before he ran for president, Trump described himself as ‘very, pro-choice.’”
But then he experienced one of your ordinary, everyday anti-choice “Damascene Conversions” just before running for president. Perfect timing wasn’t it!?
4
Probably about the same time he switched from Democrat to Republican. Another political like Bloomberg: whatever party line one has to run on to be elected.
1
@Allison Cook replied to my point as a physician that a fetus is a separate human whose cells double everyday from the point of conception by declaring, the fetus is dependent on another human for life (and therefore presumably non-human). Does she mean to suggest those in coma, who are dependent perhaps no longer than nine months on others for life, are not human? Further the trophoblastic cells that connect the mother to the fetus are the only non-cancerous cell in humans that invade tissue and STOP. It appears to me that one reason they invade and then STOP is because this group of cells to whom she connects is a unique form most physicians call human. I believe, to destroy a human from the point of conception is to snuff out a life. As a physician I took an oath to above all do no harm, so I prefer to at least give clarity to the discussion rather than obscurity. A choice can be made but I believe the chooser should be fully informed. The effect of our laws upheld by the Constitution, I believe, should be understood when acted on with permanent effect.
3
Thanks again. Lucid response.
1
You signed a bill that you know good and well allows a massive loophole that makes 3rd trimester abortions de facto legal. Literally, anything can fall under a woman's health. Then you have the nerve to blame Trump for YOUR extremism? It's not Trump's fault that NY Dems are way outside the mainstream of the US citizenry. Trump has a lot of flaws, but criticizing you for your blatant extremism is not one.
7
Still, I do not believe that religious values should drive political positions.
I'm left to wonder: what does drive Governor Cuomo's political positions?
2
Governor Cuomo, is there such a thing as right and wrong? If so, who decides? If you say that there is no such thing as universal morality then we might as well say that we are having a disagreement over preferences and end our arguments. But if there is such a thing as an objective moral standard, then you have to come back to asking yourself if that living being in the womb is a human or not. What else could it be but a human life? Don't hide behind the idea that religious people shouldn't influence public life and yours should as if your beliefs are neutral. Even Thomas Jefferson, one who hated all organized religion, thought that Christ's teachings were the greatest ethical teachings of all. Every significant founding father thought that without religion there was no morality. Americans need to forget their judicial squabbles and answer for themselves if there are certain moral truths, that there is such a thing as an objective moral standard, a right and wrong. Otherwise, all of these arguments become meaningless and in the end all of our laws cannot be said to be just but merely what the majority has decided, and the idea of rights is then just a noble lie.
3
"The decisions I choose to make in my life, or in counseling my daughters, are based on my personal moral and religious beliefs."
People don't counsel others against choices that are unproblematic.
Thank you for this piece. The mainstream pro-life position used to be that abortion should be legal if it was necessary to protect the life of the mother. Now apparently, they no longer believe this. Think of this a moment. If you get pregnant, Republicans would rather let you die than get an abortion. And they claim Democrats are the radical ones.
11
Let's be absolutely clear. The number of people who opt for "late term abortion" to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is vanishingly small. The reason for such procedures is a pregnancy gone wrong, and it is unspeakable cruelty to prolong it.. Criminal law has no business intruding.
11
"We cannot have true freedom of religion without separation of church and state. And the country cannot function if religious officials are dictating policy to elected officials."
Absolutely. I hereby decree that we stop legislating people's choices based on non-falsifiable moral or religious claims.
As such, I propose we make infanticide safe (it's health care with a scalpel or injection!), legal (protected under the Constitution!) and rare (depending on the meaning of the word "rare").
1
I wish we could vote on each specific issue and not have to pick one party and one candidate from that party.
On some topics, like this one, I identify with the Democrat stance. On some topics, I identify with the Republican stance. On some topics, my views fall somewhere in between.
Unfortunately, in this country, you have to pick ONE person to be president and for me, and many people, that often leaves you with 50-60% of stuff you are aligned with that one person on and 40-50% of stuff you are not aligned with that one person on.
Is there a better way?? I don't know. Anyone have any ideas?
1
@ABC123, I sometimes wonder if an executive board would be better, 3 presidents or maybe 5, an odd number so there would be a majority when voting. Ireland's method of voting is also very interesting, proportional representation.
@Dali Dula. I like that. Thanks for your reply. Interesting.
@ABC123 Radiolab did an interesting podcast on the proportional representation voting system in Ireland, https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/tweak-vote.
1
I once knew someone very well who expressed to me something so startling concerning abortion rights that I can never forget it. She said the following, in all seriousness. "When it comes to abortion rights, I will always vote against them. When I was unmarried and pregnant (in her late twenties!) I had an abortion, because I knew that I would never have the life I wanted if I had the child and became a single mother." I was stunned, but it was my introduction to some peoples capacity for dishonest moral behavior and their behaviors' intersection with politics. Now jump to what we have come to know of Trump. Some people should not have ANY say over anyone else's affairs, and certainly this issue must remain, BY LAW, the choice of women, as individuals.
8
There should be records kept, after the fact and no patient identifier, of the reasons each post-24-week abortion was approved. This information could be made public, which would address the problem so often named in these comments: that people don't "trust" that the reasons for these abortions are truly serious. Neither side would be happy with this solution, so maybe it would be fair.
What I suspect would be found is that the vast majority are in fact either serious maternal health risks, or serious fetal defects, as advertised. But an additional category could be things like 11-year-old girls who had been raped with the pregnancy undetected until late, and women with mental disabilities or other exigent circumstances who were unable to manage getting an earlier abortion. These would likely be fodder for debate. If politicians want to pontificate about such situations, let them face the human tragedies that are involved.
11
I could make this comment in response to many of the commenters' posts below, and that is, a majority of Americans are not Catholics or "Evangelical Christians," and don't care what they or their blatantly hypocritical leaders think about this or any other "moral" issue. Mind your own business and focus on cleaning-up your own moral messes.
13
How it was pre-Roe:
Rich pregnant women went to a foreign country for a safe, legal abortion.
Poor pregnant women went to a back-alley butcher for a dangerous, illegal abortion.
No rational person wants to the unfair, crazy days of pre-Roe.
13
Free me from the shackles of other people's religious beliefs. They are infecting our Country and its laws by their strongly held beliefs from who we should vote for, who we should love, who we should marry and the false belief that sex is for pro-creation.
How many among us have sex with the express intention of getting pregnant? Not many, I assure you. It is an intimate act for many reasons.
Who among us has the right to force our religious beliefs on others? Our Country was founded on Separation of Church and State for a reason. The first settlers came because of Religious Persecution, or so we have been led to believe.
There does not need to be a law in any State or our Country prohibiting abortion. This is a decision that we, as individuals or a couple, have a right to make.
It is hypocrisy to believe we know what is best for someone else regarding this highly personal choice.
I had an aunt who was Catholic, in a Catholic hospital ready to deliver her baby. The doctors discovered a serious infection in the process that would kill my aunt and the baby was barely alive. The doctors were Catholic and refused to save my aunt's life. My uncle rushed my aunt to another hospital where the abortion was performed. She had 11 other children at home. Enough said.
Stop the hypocrisy.
If you don't want unwanted or impossible pregnancies, provide free Birth Control measures. That is the answer.
Not Laws. Don't touch my reproductive rights and I won't touch yours.
17
I see the misrepresentation and misinformation continues, not just of the nuances of Americans' thoughts on choice and abortion, but about late term abortions themselves.
6
New York already had the most liberal abortion laws in the country. Why change them to such extremes? To such an extreme that a pregnant woman who is assaulted and loses the baby as a result does not have her very wanted child acknowledged by the law? My initial thought was that Mr. Cuomo had political ambitions himself. This op-ed confirms my convictions. I hope everyone knows the real history of Roe v. Wade - how "Roe" was psychologically manipulated as a political pawn in a contentious case - how she became a pro-life activist - how she never had an abortion. Women live in terror of their own fertility as we go on pretending that pregnancy is 'no big deal.' This 'when life begins argument' is a distraction. A growing human - at 4 weeks - at 24 weeks - is a human. To same otherwise, you would have to argue that a 1 year old is less of a person than a 3 year old - because smaller and less mature is apparently less-than-human. What are the lives not worth living? Poor lives. Disabled lives. Instead of focusing on solutions - to help women, to support them, to support the babies, to mandate maternity leave, to give financial benefits to new mothers - we talk about killing our children on the delivery table. We aren't the first country to advocate infanticide - The Greeks did it - the Romans did it -Christians were mocked for not leaving their unwanted children outside the city walls to die. At least be honest about what you're advocating for.
4
If religion didn't stick its nose into government this would not be an issue. The rich have exploited this to get what they want, more money. The separation of church and state is absolutely enshrined in the constitution. When are we going to actually exercise that admonition? Republicans have broken this part of the constitution time and time again so that now we actually "debate" un debatable (according to the constitution) things like having prayer in public schools. This is deep misogyny at work. Religion would like to keep women second class and use them as vessels for unborn children thus making them into a kind of slave to both government and the various religions. the ERA if it ever gets passed will hopefully finally give all women the right to choose irregardless of men or the churches. Ever wonder why it doesn't get passed? This made up "debate" is just too good to let go of for the rich. This has nothing to do with babies, it is all about money.
3
Nobody has “sovereignty over their own body.” That’s a false argument. The law governs everyone, men and women. If the country goes to war, men get drafted and forced to put their bodies in the path of bullets and shrapnel. Life is tough. That’s just the way it is.
2
@Greg No...men don't get drafted...the nation relies almost exclusively on working and middle class teen-aged and 20-something boys and girls to volunteer to fight its wars.
4
Also, stop saying "god bless America" at the end of political speeches. There is no god to bless anything and America certainly doesn't need cheering from a silly myth.
2
I think the question we all tiptoe around and hope no one asks is, does a fetus have moral value? Any moral value? If the answer is no, then we must ask ourselves why a fetus, with unique DNA, heartbeat, potential for sentience does not have moral value? If the answer is yes, then we must ask ourselves where the fetus's moral value begins to grant the fetus individual rights, particularly balanced against the rights of the mother?
This is not an easy question, but I do believe the answer is far more complicated than the dog whistle commentary from both sides of the pro-choice, anti-choice debate. As a nation, I think we should be willing to have this difficult conversation thoughtfully and respectfully. Otherwise we will continue this tug of war in perpetuity, and we will continue to elect unqualified officials whose only skill seems to be effectively blowing the whistle.
1
The "pro-life" folks need to reevaluate their view. Addressing the issues that lead to 'unwanted pregnancies' would do more to combat abortion than forcing someone to give birth.
3
OK. So what are the issues that lead to unwanted pregnancies? Be specific. Don't answer with boilerplate tripe as sex ed and contraception. Been there, done that! Why are two people allowing themselves to get pregnant. I know, only one gets physically pregnant, but both ARE responsible.
2
@Linda
They don't want to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. They want to force women to carry every pregnancy to term.
1
Third trimester abortions--" to protect the life or health of the woman."
OK--provided "life" is not merely physiological functioning--including functioning only with life support (Terri Schiavo); provided 'life' is taken more generally to include all aspects of quality of life--age, circumstances, ability to provide proper child care--through adulthood--for an infant, wanted, loved and chosen.
OK--provided "health" includes mental health--which is compromised by depression and undue stress.
OK--as long as "health" is defined by WHO--
"a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
All pregnancy is infirmity--disabling all sorts of activity--requiring focusing on sustaining the growing fetus--the later the more infirm. It must be undertaken only by choice. Otherwise it's oppression--forced labor-- assuming state ownership and control of the women's bodies.
Besides "Separation of Church and State" means separation of god stories (there are thousands--impossible for them to all be true) form political decision making.
Wise/fair/just public policy must be based on science and secular ethics--allowing god story values only for secular reasons..
Selecting the values of one or a group of religions runs contrary to freedom of religions. Equal freedom of religion implies secular government.
2
@Michael Kubara Are you suggesting that anyone who favors any restrictions on legalized abortion can only do so on religious grounds? Because I know that's not so. In any event, I'm not sure it matters what motivates people to hold a particular viewpoint, on abortion or any other issue.
@Dave
Yes--it doesn't matter re how they vote--it can be for any reason--deluded or not.
But No--it does matter for Separation C/S. If they argued explicitly on purely religious grounds to forbid it for all--that's unconstitutional; no?
And there are many religious practices--past and present--that are illegal. Nat Geo has an article on child sacrifice. The Bible prescribes stoning non-virgin woman. On and on. So Separation is not 100% regarding limits on religion. But not vice versa--ideally.
1
This comment is about a separate issue that comes to mind when the governor writes: We cannot have true freedom of religion without separation of church and state.
I could not agree more with him, and that is why, as a tenant with bad landlords for more than 20 years I have been repeatedly shocked to see judges seating in their courtroom (both in housing courts and appeals courts) in front of a wall that proclaims: In God We Trust.
I know this might seem trivial to some, but I do believe that this is the tip of an iceberg that pervades a lot of issues in everyday life.
4
As a physician who took a Hippocratc oath from the West's first democracy, "Above all, do no harm," I need to address a critical distinction. From the moment of conception the cells in that human double every day. It is an illusion to consider that separate human as part of another person's body. If one chooses to snuff out a life, please don't mischaracterize it has part of another human. It's a choice yes, but it concern's a separate human life. Please, can't those who differ at least keep the facts clear?
6
A separate life - How is it separate if it is dependent upon the human it is within for survival?
13
@Allison Cook is someone who is injured in a car crash and put on life support no longer a human being? Is a growing human not a human? Is a 1 year old who would certainly die if left alone not a human being?
3
And how is it separate if it depends on the human once outside it?
1
JFK- But if the time should ever come – and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible – when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.
Since Cuomo is not resigning his office, he must have no problem of conscience.
3
As a pro-choice Catholic, the issue I have is with the vague language. "Women's health" and "viable fetus" could be stretched to cover far more than just life-and-death situations.
Just as people have shared anecdotes about women who had to make the tragic decision to abort fetuses with no chance of survival, there are also stories of women who were told their babies would be born deformed or with diseases who decided to go through with their pregnancies anyway, and ended up raising beautiful, healthy children. And what about the mother's health? What if she has severe depression or anxiety in her third trimester -- would that qualify as a reason for late-term abortion? The way the law is stated, it could very well be. We just don't know. I thank God everyday that I had two healthy pregnancies and was never put in such a position to consider this option, but I think the law is intentionally left a little too wide open.
Secondly, I'm disgusting by the way the signing of the bill was celebrated as if it was a Super Bowl victory. Whether you're a supporter or not, if it is truly reserved for only the most tragic of circumstances as you claim, then it should be treated with some reverence.
5
There are also some parents who find out that the fetus has defects not compatible with life and choose to continue the pregnancy and then the infant lives a short life, full of suffering.
7
@B Yes, and that is tragic, and probably when an abortion should be considered. But there are also fetuses that could live outside the womb after 24 weeks who might not be afforded a chance at life and instead will be subjected to an abortion because we're pushing the boundaries too far. No brain function or the mother will likely die in childbirth -- yes, those situations are more clear cut. But what about if you're told the baby will have Down's syndrome or some other disease, which can still allow for a long and fruitful life, or what if a mother has suicidal feelings -- should we abort those babies in late term as well? Where is the line drawn? My point is, when it's left intentionally vague -- and we celebrate that fact -- it's as if we no longer care about the sanctity of life.
2
@Dawn
"And what about the mother's health? What if she has severe depression or anxiety in her third trimester -- would that qualify as a reason for late-term abortion? "
No, we DO know.
Considering that the law requires that the doctor would need to determine that abortion was "necessary" to protect the woman's health, and that a baby could be delivered in the third trimester, thus, ending the pregnancy, abortion would not be necessary, and therefore, the requirements of the law are not fulfilled. Thus, your fantasy scenario is not permitted under the law.
The law is vague because it is impossible to draft a law that covers all of the different medical situations that can arise. The law is vague because an over broad law is harmful and needlessly burdens women. We do not draft overly broad laws to prevent evils that do not occur.
6
No one is for abortion, but many of us are for a woman's right to choose, her reasons are none of anyone else's business.
And is it not interesting that the so-called pro life people always support war, capital punishment, lower taxes, more prisons, longer sentences, and are against public education, health care for all, not to mention pretty much all intelligent informed policy, domestic and foreign.
Beyond that they actively work to deprive all women accessible birth control. This is especially disgusting when we look at birth rates in Sub Saharan Africa and other regions where the birth rate has no chance of being sustainable.
This becomes all the more a horror show when we learn that these "Religious" people are not interested in saving lives but are; "Harvesting Souls for our Lord." What Mother Teresa said when complimented on her work with the poor.
9
Many women who need late term abortions probably have young children at home to care for. They work hard to raise their families. Their serious health issues are none of our business. And male politicians and judges should not interfere.
13
This opinion is a lesson to all other progressive governors out there.
This is how you fight against the radical right.
As far as going back to pre-Roe days, it is worth reading a column published in the NY Times back on June 3, 2008:
"Repairing the Damage, Before Roe"
It is one of the most brutal things I've ever read. We can NEVER be forced to go back to the horrors that came before the Roe case.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/health/views/03essa.html
7
We need to remember what the country was like before Roe v. Wade: every year thousands of women died and thousands more women were mutilated by unsafe back-alley abortions. Roe was about allowing women access to safe health care. We need to remember that Anti-abortion people are not truly pro-life; if they have their way many women will die and many more will be maimed.
We also need to remember why our founding fathers wanted separation of church and state. They were aware of how corrupt churches become when they are allowed to have political power, just as we see corruption in so many powerful people and institutions. Our founding fathers wanted to keep our churches pure by keeping them far away from the corrupting arms of politics.
9
Bravo Mr. Cuomo and thank you for explaining the rarity of late term abortion. There has been a lot of very inflammatory rhetoric going on around this issue that is not conducive to respectful conversation and discussion. This issue is so important partly because it is intimately tied up with a woman's physical and psychological health; and that is something people of all political persuasions and beliefs should strive to protect. I also appreciate your principled decision to separate your religious background from your legislative decisions. You're walking the walk not just talking the talk on being as fair minded and objective as you can. I respect you for it Sir. And also, I was so sad to see the reactions of some Catholic spiritual leaders...threats of excommunication should not be used as a political weapon it seems to me. Anyway, thank you for explaining your thoughts and decisions in this public and thought provoking and useful manner.
7
Why is it that anti-choicers are mostly also anti-welfare? If they truly cared about the life of the unborn child, why don't they continue to care for the newborn child?
11
If global warming, habitat destruction, and pollution continue unabated, the issue of abortion may become a moot point.
Maybe a rogue asteroid will quickly solve the problem for us.
4
@Dirigo: A great deal of opposition to abortion comes from people who believe that the Earth cannot be overpopulated to the detriment of all life on it.
3
I didn’t vote for the appalling Donald Trump but it’s times like these I am thankful he defeated Hillary Clinton.
He’s bad enough but who knows what road this nation would be traveling if she was selecting SCOTUS justices instead of him.
Infanticide would eventually be the law of the land.
3
When people can begin to discuss their responsibility in taking care of human life, not just creating it, then we can chat. If they can discuss their urgency to work toward male contraception, then we can chat. If they can discuss their participation in working toward my right to equal pay and representation then we can chat. If they can believe my story of child rape, incest, and disability, then we can chat. If they can show me how they are personally active in reducing violence against women, then we can chat. I anticipate several interesting conversations after death with my rapist, my illegal abortion provider, my spiritual teachers, and those that fought against my choice to make the decisions I did.
9
I agree with the general tenor of this article; however, the New York law, as written, gives ample fodder for abortion foes. While the premise that the health and safety should remain of primary concern is laudable, the law is vague on certain points, and, theoretically at least, may be subject to abuse. For example, the decision to abort is left to the mother and a “health care professional.” This health care professional does not have to be a doctor, and it makes no sense to leave the issue of health or safety to anyone other than a trained MD. In certain progressive states where assisted suicide is legal, two doctors have to concur that the patient is terminal, but in New York a life can be taken on the decision of a “health care professional.” Regardless of one’s political view on this issue, this is something that should concern all.
2
Bravo Mr. Governor, President Jefferson would be proud! Interestingly, these are the same folks who shout warnings about Sharia Law! Vacating Roe would merely limit safe and "legal" abortions forcing another health disparity between those who can pay cash and those who can't. Eventually, truth will out!
6
I experienced difficulties as I read this article. A Gov. voices concerns about "falsehooN Ordinary lies. ewly discovered/created "alt-facts."Or twittered twaddle. He also chose not to remind all of us, of whatever practiced faiths- "original" as well as"faux"- in name-only, that FALSEHOOD, like everything else, is divinely created, (or BIG-BANGED); even though it is not explicitly No-Noed in the ORIGINAL written in stone BIG 10 Commandments. Additionally, Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism have "archived" them differently and actually practice each of them in a range of questionable ways. Often difficult to understand. Accept? And lastly, in all truthfulness, I do not understand the relationship(s) between falsehoods-lies-alt-facts," etc., and the toxic, powerful, culture of personal unaccountanility among soo many, if not most, elected and selected policymakers. At all levels. Everywhere.
1
The right is gearing up for the 2020 election cycle. Abortion is being dragged out again as a divisive issue to be used to fire up a subset of voters and gain political advantage. Roe v. Wade stirs the pot and exaggerated rhetoric about it (charges of infanticide for example) gets people worked up. Just read the comments here. What? You say I'm cynical? Not as cynical as political operatives who want you to believe that Democrats just love killing babies. Please!
6
@Edward
Um, how is the 'right' dragging out this issue when it was New York and Virginia Democrats who proposed and in one case, passed, these bills? Who is trying to gin up their base? Will it also gin up the right? Well, of course it will and like many actions taken by your party it will hurt you much more than it helps but it gets attention to particular people or issues so you keep doing it. Then you point a finger at the Right and accuse them of doing it to deflect. Voters are not blind even if you think they are.
I refuse to be lectured about the truth by the bishops and cardinals of a false religion incapable of looking at the genitalia they were born with to determine their own gender; nothing but shape shifting rationalizations to the point of absurdity; that’s not a full term baby laying on the table struggling to breath, that’s just a solemn decision to be made between the “mother” and the abortionist.
“Those who can convince you of absurdities can convince you to commit atrocities” Voltaire
Admittedly, abortion is on rare occasions justified as is the case of deformity or physical threat to the mother's life but that is not the measure; convenience and birth control after the fact offsetting irresponsibility with the death of an innocence is not something to be celebrated with pink lights.
1
This is a thoughtful statement by Mr. Cuomo. But what will count is what the SCOTUS says about Roe v. Wade. Given that the Court has been packed with so-called pro-lifers we can expect further curtailment of abortion rights.
1
Well said.
Thank you, Gov. Cuomo, for - among other things - using the most appropriate and accurate terms for the two sides to this debate: Pro-choice and anti-choice.
It's high time that we dropped the misleading labels "pro-life" and "pro-abortion." Neither is accurate and both further inflame the issue.
4
The only thing that will stop theses religious-man-made laws and conversations about a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body and lives is an amendment to OUR U.S. Constitution that forbids any law being passed, in any U.S. territory, that interferes with this basic human freedom.
NOW is the time. As soon as WE THE PEOPLE get rid of The Con Don and his Robber Baron/radical religion Good Old Boys' cabal.
4
@njglea: All we really need is strict enforcement of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" on that attractive nuisance for religious fanatics seeking to improve their own prospects after death.
4
It is not good enough, Steve Bolger. It hasn't worked for 243 years.
Amend OUR Constitution now.
When Ruth Bader Ginsberg argued her first gender discrimination case before a state supreme court case, made up of three older white men, one said, "women are not mentioned once in the Constitution". She answered, "Neither is Freedom".
She was arguing gender discrimination against a man who was caring for his mother, while he worked a full time job, and was refused the caregiver tax credit because "only women were caregivers". She asked the state supreme court to set a NEW precedent, not undo centuries of man-made precedent. She won.
3
In a secular society, morality is based only on the law. Right and wrong are simply legal and illegal. America was founded upon Christian-Judeo ethics which were assumed, and therefore the separation of church and state was inconsequential. Now, our society is increasingly secular so there are no underlying religious ethics leaving only government as authoritative. The results of all this is a widening variety of ethical opinions over which people become intolerant. Each side favors individualism or communalism only when it serves their purpose. When government is the sole source of ethics, totalitarianism is the norm. Perhaps it's time for politicians to understand the ethical implications of their positions and legislation.
3
@JDL: "Morality" is usually somebody's opinion about what God thinks of a behavior.
3
@JDL
“Morality is based on law?”
What is law based on? Morality? That’s circular reasoning.
If you don’t believe law is based on morality, then law is based on nothing but power, which is where we’re headed.
3
Marie S of Portland, OR,
I saw Governor Cuomo on television sign the new abortion bill up until the ninth month of pregnancy while men and women cheered and clapped at its passage. Governor Cuomo also had the World Trade Center lit up in pink to celebrate its passing. And you say that people did not celebrate this new abortion bill? Are you serious? Of course they were all gleeful. Pictures do not lie. This was horrendous and pathetic.
8
@WPLMMT
The commenter said that the left was "celebrating abortion." That is very, very different from cheering the passage of a bill that protect women's right to choose.
You are purposely muddying the waters here. And it's really offensive - so stop it! NO ONE celebrates an abortion. I know this personally. But we do applaud a woman's right to control her own body.
11
@WPLMMT - This was horrendous and pathetic.
What is horrendous and pathetic is mischaracterizing what was being celebrated.
They were celebrating women's life and control over it. That some mischaracterize it is simply part of the right-wing machine that is so effective - as is pointed out in the opinion piece and picked up by those repeating the machine's talking points.
10
Governor Cuomo,
You are fooling no one but yourself.
If 59 % of Catholics approve of unrestricted abortions
then they have failed to study the teaching of the Church.
You don't get to choose what you think is right and what
you think is wrong, an informed conscience does not allow you you to support a clearly immoral action and then declare
yourself free of all guilt.
Your imperfect conscience has mislead you.
You would do well not to call yourself a Catholic when
stand by and approve a law that leads to more abortions
and have no qualms about it whatsoever.
Why Cardinal Dolan has not informed you that you will
be excommunicated leads one to wonder if the Catholic Elites
are really followers of Christ.
7
@John Brown - you that you will
be excommunicated
Maybe you need to catch up on current events where priests and bishops engaged in the behavior you seem to believe Cuomo is guilty of.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/world/europe/pope-nuns-sexual-abuse.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
1
Being born is no blessing because it immediately subjects a new sentient, suffering being to the inherent harshness of life.
Abortion is the most compassionate thing for the fetus and the mother. It blocks the horrendous birth process in which the fetus that has been comfortable with all needs met in the womb is forcibly expelled, ripping the mother's body apart.
Abortion, contraceptives, and vasectomies are also crucial tools in limiting human population growth.
Every human born is yet another consumer, polluter and destroyer of the biosphere.
The books "Better Never to Have Been," and "The Human Predicament" outline the truth most people have never been told about creating new humans and the consequences.
And women should have the ultimate, sole right to determine if they want to be pregnant, or stay pregnant.
When Trump says he hates socialism because it allegedly equals government coercion, and then seeks to use the government to coerce women to have babies they don't want, you see the insanity and hypocrisy of anti-abortion theology, which is gestation slavery.
3
I am a woman, firmly a democrat, anti-Trump, and yet I find these abortion laws too permissive and open to interpretation. I am admittedly not convinced about a woman's right to choose, unfortunately it is a biological fact that it's women who get pregnant but once that happens I do feel the body is shared and I believe the growing life has as much right to live and experience life as the mother. There is nothing religious about my position, just a belief that every life matters. There are of course grey areas, and I am not comfortable with the fact that pregnancy has often been used as a repression tool towards women. And yet, I do believe that every life is a miracle and should be given a chance to live, even starting from the womb. I have seen so many cases where doctors predicted with absolute certainty that the child would not survive, or would have no quality of life, for that then not to be the case, that I can't help but be skeptical of doctor's predictions in such difficult cases.
I wish this law was not so permissive, I find nothing to rejoice or be proud about when I read how much more flexibility women and doctors have to terminate a pregnancy. I personally know if a baby born at 24 weeks who survived and is now doing well, it horrifies me to think it will be legal to terminate children at his same development stage purely out of the mother's choice.
Lastly, I don't get how this has become a partisan issue. I wish it wasn't such of a political topic.
5
When a fetus is attached to the mother, it isn't it's own being; it's part of the mother's body, ipso facto. The mother should make any and all determinations at this point. This is not the state's province.
When a fetus exists outside the mother's body on it's own, it is it's own being, ipso facto. At this point, the state can step in and protect it.
Anti-abortion proponents try to complicate matters.
6
Wow! Never thought I'd say this but: Thank-you Governor Andrew Cuomo! The disinformation regarding late-term abortions, abortion over-all and the real objectives of the anti-choice groups is becoming omnipresent. Your message here is clear, coherent, and fact based. Let's spread this information far and wide!
14
There is a clear distinction between pro-choice and pro-life supporters. Pro-choice advocates base their approach on multi dimensional circumstances; if a woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy before the fetus is viable, then that is a private health decision. Note the operative words "if" and "then", which describe and allow for alternative decisions. The woman may also choose not to have an abortion, but it remains her choice.
Conversely, pro-life advocates present a one dimensional approach: No abortions, under any circumstances. All life begins at conception, all abortions terminate this life, therefore all abortions are infanticide. There is no allowance for any alternative determination or decision.
This one dimensional approach conforms to fundamentalist religious doctrine, where there is one true God, one true path to righteousness, and all other gods and paths are anathema. Again, there is no allowance for alternatives.
It is this one-dimensional approach to spiritual life --- certainly freely available to those who choose to embrace it, operative word here being CHOOSE --- that presents the problem when it comes to abortion rights. Life outside the spiritual confines of organized religion is not one dimensional. There must be allowance for alternatives.
As with all rights, abortion rights should present these alternatives, while describing limitations. No one advocates infanticide, but suppression of choice disavows the fundamental right of human determination.
4
Considering the history of sexual assault of nuns by priests, resulting in pregnancy and sometimes leading to abortion, I would say that the Church’s position on abortion is rather compromised.
Abortion as a medical procedure should remain legal, without unnecessary restrictions. We must not allow hospitals to deny life-saving treatment for women experiencing miscarriage, which has occurred when the hospital staff were unable to determine if the miscarriage was spontaneous or the result of an abortion attempt. If we want to reduce the incidence of abortion in this country, we have to get serious about the factors that make abortion a viable option for women and families.
4
The GOP and Pro-birthers are all about "states rights" until a state passes laws they don't agree with! Like it or not, abortion will ALWAYS be legal in the US.
8
Thank you Governor Cuomo. Because the far right is spreading falsehoods about New York's Reproductive Health Act I would suggest that your office and the legislature do more to counter that propaganda -- more opinion pieces like yours, for example, and interviews on radio and TV. People I know who are otherwise reasonably intelligent are panicking that the law enables infanticide. An outright lie such as this must be put to rest immediately.
5
"The Reproductive Health Act guarantees a woman's right to abortion in the first 24 weeks of a pregnancy or when the fetus is not viable,"
This is what concerns me. What is the definition of "viable"? What if technology makes it possible to keep a 15-week old fetus alive? Will that become the new "viable", thus requiring women to use what would surely be limited family resources to keep it alive in the event it is "born" prematurely, or the pregnancy needs to end to preserve her health?
2
Trump doesn't care about abortion or the women who would suffer from the lack of one. The speech was written for him since he isn't intelligent enough to write a speech with this amount of detail.
11
I too am Catholic and pro choice, differing in what I put into practice in my own life, but reluctant to impose my own choices on others who may not believe as I do. But I am confused.
If a woman’s life or health is in danger during the third trimester of pregnancy, when the fetus is probably viable, why is abortion even considered?
Why not C Section or induced delivery which would result in a live, if premature, infant?
My understanding of the necessity of allowing late term abortion is that there is something gravely wrong with the fetus, something that is incompatible with life.
It is no wonder that New York’s law and Governor Cuomo are subject to withering criticism. They are making the wrong argument, which any reasonable person can see through.
Please, the life or health of the mother argument does not hold water. Stop using it.
@Marion Eagen: I don't get what justifies anyone forcing someone else to to complete a pregnancy to adopt the baby themselves.
1
You are 100% accurate when you say, "I do not believe that religious values should drive political positions." Mr. Cuomo.
Tell it to your New York catholic bishops who are driving the supposed "pro-life and life at conception" lies. Tell them to honor OUR U.S. Constitution that demands Separation of Church and State.
Somehow the catholic church and other supposed "religious" organizations have tried to say OUR Constitution only protects them from government interference - not WE THE PEOPLE from them.
That is NOT true. Separation is Separation. No religious organization has a right to try to force their beliefs on the rest of us.
But the Good Old White Boys with money keep trying to take away our human and individual rights. WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who can/will/MUST stop them NOW.
9
@njglea: These folks are just too dishonest to accept that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" prohibits all laws that treat articles of faith as facts.
2
Is there language in the act that prevents abortion "a few minutes before birth"? if there isn't the law allows it.
3
It is truly disgusting what the Democrats have become, and what the choose to celebrate.
7
@Don Twohig It's disgusting that women are people with autonomy? It's disgusting that families have the option to prevent further suffering for their non-viable fetus?
12
Thank you, governor Cuomo. Last night's diatribe was absolutely disgusting. I, too, am Catholic, and I wholeheartedly agree with the importance of religious freedom AND the separation of church and state. This article is necessary to counter the fiction of last night's speech.
8
I agree that abortion must be the last resort to save the life of the mother or the child or terminate the pregnancy of a severely deformed fetus. But somehow I do not believe that will be the case, as abortion is often the way out for some women who fail to use birth control. Of course, the man is responsible too in the failure to use birth control but it is the woman who is the vessel to carry the embryo/fetus; it is in the female womb in which human being develops. Pregnancy and childbirth are the results of Eve's succumbing to the temptation of the Devil, disguised as Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Had she and Adam not feasted upon the Forbidden Fruit plucked from the Tree of Knowledge, which God ordered them not to consume, then none of this would be an issue. Thank you.
3
Christian mythology can no more be the basis of our laws than Greek mythology, Native American mythology or Eskimo mythology. Even the Pope acknowledged that the stories of the Bibles were just stories. People turn to stories when they can’t justify their beliefs in reality.
8
@Southern Boy Nuns seem to get lots of abortions thanks to priests and bishops.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/world/europe/pope-nuns-sexual-abuse.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
5
@Southern Boy
"Pregnancy and childbirth are the results of Eve's succumbing to the temptation of the Devil..."
Tongue in cheek? I sure hope so. If not, then this is the worst anti-choice argument I've ever read.
6
Roe should be overturned; not for any pro-choice/pro-life debate but because it is bad law. It builds upon a made up "right to privacy" that appears nowhere in the Constitution to allow the Federal government to intervene in what should be a State decision, the regulation of medical procedures within that state.
That being said, Mr. Cuomo is being somewhat disingenuous when he says religious principles have no place in law. Many of our basic laws, from theft to murder, are based on principles found in religion.
3
@mikecody: How and when did we ever delegate the management of our own bodies to any layer of government?
4
@Steve Bolger Any time a State regulates what procedures a doctor can and cannot perform. We accept that management for or against euthanasia, We accept that management when we do not allow children to get piercings without parental consent. We accept that management on levels between those extremes. Why is this one procedure so special that it needs Federal oversight?
Andrew - you are a liar and you are morally bankrupt. We have abortion and its legal and that's fine. What you signed is a license for women to terminate full term for and reason and doesn't have to be done by a doctor. This is an abomination.
As an elected official you are supposed to lead by a moral compass in a country founded on Judeo Christian values. You have betrayed your education and your service as an alter boy as a champion of infanticide.
You have also betrayed your Catholic High School where you were indicted into its Hall of Fame. We the alumni from various graduating classes have organized a boycott of all school events and fundraisers until your plaque comes down. You no longer deserve that honor. My classmates who are also Hall of Fame members have requested that their plaques be removed until yours is taken down. You are a fraud and playing progressive politics in the hope of political gain and you should be ashamed of yourself.
9
Way to go!!!
1
Extremely well articulated, Mr. Governor. Thank you for weighing in on an issue that is gaining steam based on abject lies. People I know on social media are spreading those memes like wildfire and refuse to believe that these laws are anything but legalizing the slaughter of babies. They already have their preconceptions that will make it impossible for them to believe the truth...that this is just updating New York’s laws to conform to current standards before the judicial activists installed by the Federalist Society decide that stare decisis means nothing and overturns all precedent on the issue. Just like they did when they overturned the Abood decision last year.
9
Of course they resort to lies, Lies are all they have. They blew the moral high ground arguments when these Christians decided to dance with the amoral Trump. I think they are scared and hence dangerous. The fundamentalist know they are a dying breed within the American Religious scene. I doubt they will be any sort of force in 20-40 years. Probably more a tourist curiosity.
13
@GUANNA Not "amoral" but "immoral".
1
Thanks for the clarification Governor Cuomo. What Trump said last night in the State of the Union was so jarring I almost choked on my popcorn. Talk about disinformation and propaganda. God bless America for all its troubling divisiveness.
8
It's said often that late term abortion is performed in less than 1% of all abortions yearly (in the U.S.) and thus should be considered a rare occurrence.
Out of 1.2 million abortions performed yearly in the U.S., this is 12,000 persons - hardly a rare occurrence. If we were talking about any other type of death, police shootings, deaths from a drug, or as the result of a lacking safety protocol, 12,000 would not be considered rare.
If the mother's physical life is truly at stake, I agree abortion should be an option to save her life. I just mistrust the portrayal of this 1% statistic as being as "rare" as pro-choice people suggest. Let's be honest about the number.
6
Andrew Cuomo is in a large ditch he himself dug. It won't be easy for him to come out from it. Blaming Trump or Catholic Church won't bring him out from the ditch. In his eagerness to please his base, he forgot his moral duty and signed a bill to allow abortion of viable babies. He celebrated this cruel act along with the extreme abortion supporters. He lit the Freedom tower to celebrate this "noble" act. Why he and his supporters think that killing babies is an act that should be celebrated. Abortion is not necessary to protect the life or health of the woman. Babies can be extracted from woman's body without killing the babes. Even if abortion is necessary, after viability of the fetus, in some circumstances, it is not something to be celebrated.
8
First of all Mr. Cuomo, you don't have to be religious in any capacity to know that it is wrong to kill innocent lives, let alone live babies. There is no constitutional right to infanticide. It's not abortion when the baby has been born healthy, and then the doctor and mother decide to kill it.
Civil rights are negative rights. We are not allowed to take away another's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It is not a positive right, like giving people the "right" to kill the unborn, and now the recently born. It is disgusting that people are fighting for this.
8
The law does not say what you claim it says. All it does is codify existing caselaw.
7
If the Supreme Court reverses Roe v Wade and Congress and the states put the Reproductive Health Act endorsed by Governor Cuomo and his state legislature on the ballot, I am betting that three quarters of the states will ratify it. Hence, it will be a constitutional right to have an abortion. Unfortunately the Evangelicals and right wing Catholics would find it difficult to continue with their sole moral justification of "we have God on our side." And, I wonder what the Republican Freedom Caucus ilk will do with their pocketsize constitutions conveniently held in their suit jackets? BTW, I remember Governor Cuomo's father taking the same kind of abuse when he spoke at Notre Dame. The good news was that the Catholic Priest President defended his free speech. Cuomo is proud of his Catholic heritage but he is also proud of how he governs as a pluralist American.
5
Governor, if you're going to call the pro-life movement "anti-choice", then you need to accept the title of pro-death instead of pro-choice. Because death is what you are choosing over life.
9
@kwc57 Nope. Give birth or give birth is not a choice. Pro-choice and anti-choice is the correct dichotomy. Woman may choose to abort, she may also choose to give birth.
12
@kwc57
Gov. Cuomo is using the EXACT correct terminology. "Pro-life" is a misleading euphemism cooked up by the anti-choice, anti-women's rights folks.
Thank you, Gov. Cuomo. Words - and actions - matter.
7
Amen, Governor Andrew Cuomo.
4
I’ve always viewed abortion as sort of a necessary evil. But celebrating abortion as some kind of symbol of a liberated society is grotesque and sickening.
9
@Greg: As a woman, it's about celebrating my freedom as an autonomous being able to have sovereignty over my own body. And it shouldn't even be a celebration, considering men take sovereignty over their own bodies for granted.
18
@Greg
Who is "celebrating abortion" here? Nobody chooses to have an abortion on a lark. It's not a day at the spa or girlfriend's getaway.
It is (almost always) a grueling, difficult, last resort decision. And it should be the woman's (along with her physician, post-viability).
Men, you really need to show some compassion, practice empathy, for heaven's sake...
7
@Anne It is NOT "your own body." You do not have two hearts, 8 limbs, 4 eyes, and two sets of DNA. I'd be willing to bet, however, that much like yourself, the baby being aborted would like to have "sovereignty" over THEIR own body too.
3
Like his critics, Governor Cuomo chooses to frame the issue as mainly one of Church versus State, or of "personal religious beliefs" versus the law, as if law is disconnected from morality. But both sides refuse to recognize that there is a moral argument to be made without reference to religion. There ARE atheists, "agnostics", and people on the left whose opposition to abortion on demand is based on science, logic, and the liberal tradition. We do not fall back on the stock phrases of the current (and lazy) us-versus-them "debate".
4
@Martin Daly: Everything hinges on what the "soul" is. Those who see it as a product of acculturation and experience of life see birth as the start of life.
Where did the he say anything about soul? Even we Atheists who don't subscribe to your soul phantasy can oppose abortion.
1
Gov. Cuomo is a pompous individual and a disgrace to Catholicism. One can only hope and pray that he is excommunicated from the Catholic Church. At the very least he should be denied Communion.
8
@Donald: The Catholic church that protects pedophiles and now a new report (also in the NYT today) about nuns getting abortions after being raped by priests? That Catholic Church? That moral bastion of right and wrong?
19
My guess is that you believe this comment, and all similar comments and letters, will be your key to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Think again, my friend. You don’t speak for Jesus, and as we’re discovering day after day, neither does the Pope or the Catholic Church.
9
abortion a moral or religious issue and proclaim that it is always wrong has a heartless streak in it for the already living.
When I was 7 months pregnant with my second child, I fell into conversation with a priest who was visiting in our parish. In the course of it we touched on my pregnancy and hope that all would go well.
It still gives me chills that he stated that if I got into a life-threatening situation, the church’s position would be to save my baby and let me die because the baby was “the more innocent life.”
15
I am solidly pro-choice, but I understand how many who object to abortion in every way are not of that opinion because their religion dictates it. They just think some things are forever wrong and abortion is one of them. I personally think hunting is wrong, but I don't advocate outlawing it because I would not send someone to jail because he or she hunts. That's what abortion is about - do you sent someone to jail because she has an abortion? And is it any of your business to decide for her what is right and what is wrong where her own body is at stake? I don't think so, and sometimes when you phrase the question as "Should a woman go to jail for having an abortion?" you get some hemming and hawing.
1
Bravo Gov. Cuomo! A friend discovered 20 years ago that the brain of the fetus in her womb was growing outside the skull. Micro-surgery was not possible. Her doctor told her the baby would die at the latest, during or just after birth. What horrible news for a woman who was so excited to be a mom. My grief-stricken friend opted for 'late term' abortion. Please right-to-lifers, try to understand why a woman would chose late term abortion. As in so many things in life, this is not black & white.
426
@Tom O'Brien
I believe Dennis Hastert called her a terminator.
3
@The Iconoclast
And I believe that Hastert was caught seeking out love in all the wrong places.
28
@Tom O'Brien
You didn't say WHEN this was found out though. I have a feeling it wasn't a week before birth.
In fact, you can see pretty much EVERYTHING at 20 weeks, among other things, the sex of the fetus. Surely you don't want me to believe they couldn't detect a brain growing outside of the skull?
4
Those last two paragraphs say it all. I don’t understand how anyone can intellectually deny those thoughts.
4
@Martin West easy. While some religious people have objections based on their beliefs, it isn't about religion. That's a canard that Coumo is using poorly to bolster his view. It is about morality, end of story. Human life comes from the womb. Ending that human life in the womb is exactly that, ending a human life. Setting the rare instance of the mother's health aside, the vast majority of abortion is used like a mulligan. Human life is far more valuable than getting a do over.
2
Opposition to abortion as religious conviction is the excuse of cowards. The seventh commandment forbids theft. Does this make private property merely a religious conviction? I will, however, say that your Catholic faith seems pure pretense. You may consider examining why the Church teaches what it does.
2
I thought Cuomo was going to finally explain to us the Left's enthusiasm for late term abortion. Instead, we got his typical bloviation on women's rights, blah, blah, blah, but no intellectual defense for late term abortion. It makes one wonder if they are just taking one for the extremists in their party, or they themselves believe in abortion up until birth, or, if you are Ralph Northam, abortion after birth. Most Americans support first trimester and possibly second trimester choice. Past that, especially with modern medical technology, abortion enthusiasts are on very, very shaky ground. Maybe someday they will explain why they feel so strongly about an issue 85% of Americans disagree with them on.
3
@Achilles: "bloviation on women's rights, blah, blah, blah, but no intellectual defense for late term abortion."
Women's rights *are* the intellectual defense for abortion.
10
85%
Really?
And your proof of this claim?
1
@Achilles
"the Left's enthusiasm for late term abortion." What? NO ONE on the Left is "enthusiastic" about late term abortion. No one, indeed, is enthusiastic about abortion, period.
Listen up, anti-choicers: this IS about women's rights. Your dismissal ("bloviation on women's rights, blah, blah, blah...") says it all.
As the old saw goes: If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
4
The many deliberately ignorant people voting for Trump need to be inflamed to keep voting for him. They refuse to look at any other aspect of him. He knows it, he plays it.
The Dems need to hit HARD on the GOP, the protect the fetus only party, is completely unwilling to help the child once born. And they want the woman punished for bringing another needy mouth into the world.
The GOP only protects the fetus to force women to the status of brood mare. That status gets women out of the board room, it keeps them poor and as close to enslaved as you can get without being formally bound into slavery. It allows the GOP to justify paying women less than men for the same work and same job. They want women to hold assistant jobs so that they can “assist” by gifting their bosses their income as it is all too often women do the real work. If these deliberately ignorant middle aged white men really wanted children, they would give women years of paid time off, tons of free medical care to mother and child and a free education. That simply will not happen with this hypocritical GOP. They don’t want to pay for any birth control and they don’t want to pay for the child either, it is NOT their problem. DEMS need to BLAST BLAST BLAST the GOP for their hypocrisy. A billboard in every city, a commercial on every program.
4
Given the tabled legislation in the Commonwealth of Virginia last week and Governor Northam's bumbling radio interview that was tantamount to endorsing infanticide (i.e., making the baby comfortable), it is understandable the Pro-life movement would be up in arms.
How can building a border barrier be a moral decision and this not?
___
“Abortion is only advocated by persons who have themselves been born.”
- Ronald Reagan
3
@Coffee Bean: No fetus has ever given informed consent to be born.
1
Quoting Reagan is a mistake second only to quoting 45.
1
@Steve Bolger
@Baszposaune
You're BOTH dodging the substance of the comment and DEFLECTING to the quote.
"Yes, Climate Change is real yet the sun still rises in the east."
- Coffee Bean
" While governments may very well enact laws that are consistent with religious teaching, governments do not pass laws to be consistent with what any particular religion dictates." I wonder if Ross Douthat and the New York Times accept this bedrock principle of American Constitutionalism. Mr. Douthat published an essay just days ago that explicitly asserted that his own version of Catholic Orthodoxy is a sufficient grounds for depriving women of the right to control their own reproductive lives. While there are secular arguments against abortion that might feature in an opinion piece, Mr. Douthat appears to hold the position that he has the right to simply impose his religious convictions on the lives of the American people. One need not wonder what the response would be if the Times published the words of a Sunni Imam who quoted the Koran as the sole grounds for a social policy that all Americans would have to obey. Mr. Douthat uses the Times opinion page much like some supporters of Political Islam use their loudspeakers on a Friday in the Middle East, and all of us who subscribe support that misuse.
2
It's a puzzle to me that single men who have given up sex should be able to make decisions about what a woman can and cannot do about pregnancy. Their knowledge of women's bodies, and the details of pregnancy--like morning sickness et alia--amounts to zero. That they cite a "higher being"--male, of course--as the ultimate decider is ludicrous, and requires hubris that is off the charts.
Republican neanderthals using the position of the Catholic Church to bludgeon women's rights, and it's obscene. Women should be the ultimate arbiters about their own pregnancies.
10
I wish that all the reputable news organizations would publish the story of Dr Savita Hulappanvar. Her death in Ireland from sepsis, caused by the doctors unwillingness to abort her deceased pre-natal child, brought about the legalization of abortion in that country. Dr. Hulapanvar was precisely the type of patient who seeks this procedure. A woman who carries a child to full term or nearly full term does not cavalierly decide to end her pregnancy. Her life is in danger, or she has to make the wrenching decision to wait for the unborn child she has lovingly anticipated die inside her or peacefully outside her body.
12
If pro-choice people want to enter a true dialogue with people that are opposed to abortion, those relative numbers have to go. In all the NYT reports on reproductive rights, I have not once found an absolute number of late-term abortions. It's always "less than 1%". Of what? You have to understand that for someone who's morally opposed to the idea of abortion, let alone late-term abortion, but also sensitive to the plight of women caught in unbearably difficult circumstances, I will at some point have to make up my mind on what I, personally, think of this policy. Like it or not, I will have to weigh late-term abortions against women's health and choice. And for that, I need to have an actual count.
I wouldn't move to a certain neighborhood if you tell me that "less than x% of crimes there are violent". That does not contain any useful information to me. It could be the most dangerous, or the most safe neighborhood I could imagine. Please, you are a journal. At least give me the facts.
2
@Michele Muller
One, there are no exact figures for the number of abortions performed, because some women have no access to and/or money to pay for professional care.
Two, your moral opposition to anything at all doesn't give you the right to make the laws in this country.
4
@Rea Tarr Seriously? Are you morally opposed to rape or murder? Does your moral view on those subjects give you a right to make laws in regard to them? I don't think you've thought this all the way thru.
1
I could not help but be struck by the dissonance in Trump's SOU speech regarding socialism and abortion.
It's clear that in USA if you are male then you are "born free".
But if you are female then Trump and the State will decide issues regarding your body.
6
The two things that jump out at me whenever this topic is discussed: 1) The utter lack of factual information on the part of those who are knee-jerk anti-abortion and 2) the total lack of consideration for the pregnant woman as anything other than an unnecessary (to them) afterthought. Women do not lose their personhood when a fertilized egg implants. With regard to any abortion and particularly late term ones, the only people who know all the relevant facts are the ones who get to make the decision. Not folks on the internet who just make up what they don't know.
3
What constitutes "pregnancies which endanger the woman's life or health"? This line is the most contentious part of this law because it creates a legal gray area about what is and isn't permitted. For example, a sponsor of a similar bill in VA, Ms. Tran, admitted that mental health conditions could be included in this category.
If Democrats outlined a specific process for certifying that the patient's health was at risk and what constitutes that risk, it would take the wind out of the argument of Republicans.
4
@Texas1836
...they did. A doctor (you know, a person with a medical degree who is actually qualified to determine whether a person is at risk) must determine that it's necessary. It's written right there in the law. Where did we lose you? Why are you confused?
Why do you think it's a good idea for non-medical professionals to try to spell out which medical conditions 'justify' abortion? Why not leave it to the professionals?
9
To overturn Roe v Wade would be a disaster to the physical and mental health of the women in this country. The Religious Right wants to impose their beliefs on all citizens, and the right leaning Supreme Court justices are to render their opinions without regard to their personal religious beliefs. Yes, restrictions on some aspects of abortion should be considered according to the individual needs of women seeking that procedure. One can only hope that the female justices on the Court can come down on the side of common sense and continue to uphold the law as it now stands.
3
I just wish people could be consistent in their thinking. First, “extremely rare” and “less than one percent” is 6,000 third trimester “procedures” each year. Mass shootings by legal gun owners (a specific right granted by the Constitution) are committed by a much, much smaller percentage of gun owners and kill 1% of the number of people but Cuomo has no problem stripping the remains owners of their rights because of the few.
If religion should not guide political policy, then why do we constantly hear religious arguments about how “un-Christian it is to turn away poor, harmless illegal aliens at our border.
I’m all for robust debate, but it’s as hard to debate an empty vessel as it is to compress a water balloon.
4
@Rick Williamson
Apples and oranges. A ridiculous comparison...
God, I wish men would think - just contemplate for a few minutes! - what it would be like to be saddled with an unwanted pregnancy (which, of course, would not be possible without the participation of a man). Nine months of carrying an embryo/fetus, countless changes to your body, and major impacts on your life. Then labor (!) and delivery.
Please look beyond your comfortable, will-never-get-pregnant world...
5
Although abortion ought never be a first choice for an unwanted pregnancy, it must remain legal and safe but, hopefully, rare. At the end, it is a woman's prerrogative to decide on such a delicate issue, not us men however much we participate to cause it. Let's trust a day will come when we shall have effective and efficient methods to avoid all this discussion to begin with. Meanwhile, shouldn't we worry and discuss more urgent problems (i.e. climate change, poverty, inequality)?
1
Why is it ok to kill babies in Middle Eastern wars for the supposed sake of our nation's freedom and not ok for a woman to kill a fetus inside her own body for the sake of her own freedom? I never understand the hypocrisy. And why does killing a fetus generate more moral outrage than killing live kindergarten children with guns? Why is killing of fully formed human beings by guns and bombs acceptable as "collateral damage" while killing an unviable fetus is not? and when a woman's life is threatened how can anyone claim that the fetus is more important? Killing is killing and every anti-abortionist I've ever met is absolutely illogical and hypocritical. When you oppose ALL killing it might be worth listening to you. But don't try to claim you have the right to pick which killings are moral and which are not.
7
It appears you are comfortable with killing a fetus (your words) which you and I and everybody reading this once were. I am glad our collective mothers and fathers didn't share your view. Oh. and, Prince Andrew, one does not have to be religious to be pro-life. There is this little thing called ethics and morality which stands outside religion.
1
@fFinbar There are zero ethics and morality in forced childbirth.
4
The demise of the Supreme Court began with Teddy Kennedy...........who is symbolic of an era, in which we all were well-intentioned but extremely short sighted and self-destructive.....ultimately dying with an actual hole in our collective head.
Why oh why did Kennedy chose to destroy Robert Bork, based on personal character, ignoring his extensive legal scholarship and well-respected judicial opinions??? Why?.........well.....because Robert Bork had the temerity to respect and follow the law, advising Nixon that he indeed DID have the authority to fire people in the Exec Branch and then carried out those orders from Pres Nixon.
And since Kennedy's character assasination of Bork..........we have endured an endless succession of lackluster court orderlies who appearantly dont have an opinion on anything and lack a commitment to the law...they just follow narrow political agendas from their masters.
Finally, Trump broke with that and got Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court...............Then Trump skru'd up an nominated another puddle of mud, being groomed for the post by GOP-DNC insiders......Brett Kavanaugh. Good Grief.
Meanwhile over 100 judicial seats are vacant because the GOP and DNC Political Machines are still fighting over obsolete narrow political agendas....neither of which does this Nation any good in the 21st Century.
2
The Republican plan is to eventually force about one million American girls, *each year,* to have unwanted babies. which most of the girls would be unable to care for well or at all.
1
Let’s see, how can we thwart this evil Republican plan? Don’t get pregnant!
1
@Max Good to know you walk around promoting vasectomies and abstinence for males. After all, men are 100% responsible for the need for abortion.
6
I struggle with this issue and have for years. I support a woman's right to control her own body, but somewhere in the pregnancy the fetus becomes a baby in my mind. That transformation happens at some point before birth and I believe the child deserves someone to be an advocate for them.
3
I'm tired of hearing about control of one's body. What happened to control of one's body at the time of consensual intercourse, fully aware of the possible natural consequences? BTW, science has made it possible for a woman to determine when she is fertile and may get pregnant, and should therefore refrain from sexual intercourse. And of course it's a two-way street. Her husband/lover/boyfriend should respect that decision. Perhaps that old line "not tonight I have a headache" was ahead of these times. It reflected a woman who could read the signs her body were sending her.
1
@fFinbar
Unfortunately, "you should have thought about that before you had sex" isn't an answer for a woman who has just learned that her baby has no lungs and will die at birth, whose membranes ruptured at 24 weeks and is now at risk for sepsis. It's no answer for an OB responding to an serious emergency during a delivery, and doesn't deserve to be accused of infanticide if the baby doesn't survive, either.
1
Words cannot describe how grateful I am that I live in New York. Why, when illegal immigrants (and most minorities) are so distained by Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, do they want to have even more of them born by eviscerating contraception and abortion accessibility? I have yet to meet ANYONE who chose to have an abortion for ‘fun’ or convenience or any other reason that could be called frivolous and where it was not a life changing struggle to reach that decision.
219
@RCI agree with the general tenor of this article; however, the New York law, as written, gives ample fodder for abortion foes. While the premise that the health and safety should remain of primary concern is laudable, the law is vague on certain points, and, theoretically at least, may be subject to abuse. For example, the decision to abort is left to the mother and a “health care professional.” This health care professional does not have to be a doctor, and it makes no sense to leave the issue of health or safety to anyone other than a trained MD. In certain progressive states where assisted suicide is legal, two doctors have to concur that the patient is terminal, but in New York a life can be taken on the decision of a “health care professional.” Regardless of one’s political view on this issue, this is something that should concern all.
7
@RC
I have known of two people who have had abortions. In each case it was because their sexual activity produced a new life. One was in college, the other a senior in high school. Both pregnancies were terminated because the girls* and boys* involved were unable to face the consequences of their willing actions. Of course, the pregnancies were live changing events. For MEN and women if you do not want to be in this type of a life changing event, do not engage in sexual intercourse.
* I call them girls and boys because science has found that human brains are not fully mature until the mid 20's. Maybe people should wait until they are more adult to engage in such life altering activities. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2010-12-brain-fully-mature-30s-40s.html
3
@L M D'Angelo
Do you think it was still not a life changing struggle for them to reach that decision? Were they unable to face the consequences of their actions or were they in a stage of their lives where they were unable to monetarily provide for a child, or would've had to abandon their educations? You're brushing their experience off because it was not tragic. These "girls and boys" were able to take care of the people that already existed, and most likely went on to live full lives—thankful that the safe option was there for them.
Young people will have sex before they reach their mid-twenties. Instead of fighting this fact (it's been true since the dawn of man) we need to look critically at the sex education in our schools, and make birth control widely accessible.
25
Well said Governor. Would that the Imbecile -in-Chief was so clear headed and well spoken.
4
Evil has many faces. Andrew Cuomo is one of them. So are the faces of ALL the champions of this barbarism. Explain this to me all of you supporters of the practice of late term abortion on demand. And lets cut the lie that that it's not "on demand" if wanted.
Tell me, how does anyone with a shred of a conscience, a shred of morality, a shred of humanity turn on a light on top of a building to cheer and celebrate making legal the killing a kid at 8 months 29 days and 59 minutes by injecting it with salt water and burning it to death or sticking a forceps in its head and scrambling its brains like so many scrambled eggs? Tell me this? If a woman had given birth to that kid in a toilet and them threw it into a dumpster to die all of you including Cuomo would be calling her a murderer. The truth is this. , there's no physiological difference between a an 8 month 29 day 59 minute "fetus" and a 9 month 1 minute old born baby. Not one expert, doctor or anyone else could tell the difference in age for these two yet killing the first is to celebrated?
The real question his how do those who laughed and cheered when this "death warrant" was signed look in a mirror or sleep at night?
By the way, I'm not pro life. Abortion in the first trimester is fine with me. Murder on the day before delivery is not.
4
@Mike
Oh good lord.
1. Saline abortions have not been used for decades.
2. Why do you think that someone is going to stick a knife into a baby's head when it's crowing? This bill wouldn't even allow that (as if any doctor or woman would ever agree to it).
3. The bill allows abortion when a doctor determines it is necessary to preserve the woman's health.
Why would an abortion at 8 months, 29 days, and 59 minutes be necessary to preserve the woman's health? It's not-- completing delivery would accomplish the same thing (and would be safer for the woman)-- ending the pregnancy.
Therefore, your scenario is not permissible under the law.
This post reads like a fetus-snuff film fantasy on your part. Not a good look.
"there's no physiological difference between a an 8 month 29 day 59 minute "fetus" and a 9 month 1 minute old born baby. Not one expert, doctor or anyone else could tell the difference in age for these two"
This is not true. The fetus undergoes a number of physiological changes upon birth. A doctor could absolutely tell the difference, it's insane to suggest otherwise. What you obviously mean is that there is no moral difference between the two. I just feel compelled to point out how ignorant you are in re: fetal development.
7
Trump doesn't give a hoot about abortion one way or the other. His speech was written for him, designed to fire up his base and all the pro-lifers who care greatly for the unborn but don't seem to care so much after they're born in terms of providing them with adequate health care, education, school lunches and all the other requisites of a happy and productive life. The GOP mantra: "Life is precious until you actually come out of the womb. Then you're on your own."
355
@Christy
Perfect synopsis
19
@Christy, I agree Trump doesn't care about abortion. He has probably initiated a few himself.
I used to share your view 'pro-lifers who care greatly for the unborn but don't seem to care so much after they're born in terms of providing them with adequate health care, education'. This complicates what should be a straight forward matter in that the same could be said of anyone being born into non-ideal circumstances... such as giving birth to children in a degraded country, economy, environment.
Better to detach abortion from left v/s right politics. This way it may breach the divide rather than further polarizing it.
9
Truth be told, Mr. Cuomo and his supporters are feeding right into the frenzy with their celebratory take on their law, including a stunning and totally ill-advised move to light up the New York skyline in pink. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: quit being so “happy” about abortion.
The mantra used to be “safe, legal and rare” and that continues to be a solid choice. A somber and subdued tone on New York’s law, instead of such a rosy, colorful approach, would be more respected by the majority of Americans.
Out here in the heartland, most decent people realize that abortion may be necessary, but sad, procedure, especially so if a mother’s life is in danger, but no one I know takes the happy tone that Mr. Cuomo and his ilk do. Free advice: tone it down, folks, your optics are working against you.
116
@Paul
I think the Dems have toned it down for far too long. If Trump and the GOP do not inspire moral outrage than what will?
64
@Paul No one is "happy about abortion". Any "happiness" involved comes from having afforded women their right to make decisions about their own bodies. And yes, sometimes "decent people" are forced into making decisions that horrify them.
73
@Paul I think the joy is in knowing, seeing, and acknowledging that they took a step towards protecting women. We are not breeding cows for the sake of men. I am happy the state of NY is taking this stance. I would hope the rest of the country does too. No woman should ever be forced into motherhood. And any law that supports that should be met with joy. I do not want us to be like the Middle East or even Latin America where women have to resort to hidden doctors or worse are jailed for common miscarriages. You misunderstand the joy. The act of abortion is a terrible (sometimes necessary) decision. The Joy is for the fact we can make it.
93
Um...don’t ALL laws “legislate morality”? That’s why laws exist, to codify right and moral behavior and punish wrong. That’s a ridiculous arguement defending this barbaric law. Should be called the Reproductive Death Act if it were honest. Confucius says...To restore the health of a sick society, call things by their proper name. “Pro-choice” proponents and “Catholic” Gov. Cuomo fail at this right from the start.
1
Really, Mr Cuomo?
Decent people have a vested interest in not permitting the extremist abortion positions now being pushed by Democrats.
What Democrats want now is infanticide, not a woman controlling her own body.
5
@EGD
The law as it's written says, in effect, that the woman's life is more important than the possible life of the fetus.
Do you and those other "decent" people argue that the woman should die? Nice.
2
@Rea Tarr
Exactly no one outside a microscopic lunatic fringe argues that any woman should die in childbirth to save the life of the infant.
The law also states, I believe, though, that the woman’s mental health can be a consideration, as well, so Democrats are pushing a scenario in which pre-delivery anxiety or depression could be reason enough to kill an infant.
Do Dems really want to adopt such an absolutist extreme position prior to the 2020 election? Infanticide isn’t exactly a vote getter.
1
"As a Roman Catholic, I am intimately familiar with the strongly held views of the church." - Andrew Cuomo https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/cuomo-roe-abortion-trump.html?comments#commentsContainer
"a Vatican magazine last week mentioned nuns having abortions or giving birth to the children of priests."
“It’s true,” Francis said. “There are priests and bishops who have done that.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/world/europe/pope-nuns-sexual-abuse.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
On what high sanctimonious ground is the Catholic Church on abortion, and most especially abortion for convenience - it's convenience? And are our representatives, judges, and executives officers of the country or of the Church in the implementation of their responsibilities?
2
Governor: You state that you "do not believe that religious values should drive political positions." But this is not a religious issue. It is a moral issue in which the Catholic church agrees with. The Catholic church also is against human trafficking, but no one would ever label human trafficking a religious issue. And no one would suggest it be legal because it parallels the moral teachings of the Catholic church.
This law simply allows for the killing of an unborn human. No euphemisms here: it is not the “termination of a pregnancy.” Of course, all pregnancies are terminated, it is just that most of them end, terminate, when the baby is delivered. Nor is it, as I recently read, the “interruption of a pregnancy.” As if one could put a pregnancy on pause, take a cruise or some such thing, then return to the pregnancy.
Some might argue this unborn child is not "human." Of course it is: it's mother is human, it's father is human, what else could it be?
Some might argue that we don't know when life begins. I think we do, but let's suspend that for a moment and agree that we don't know when life begins. If we really are not sure when life begins, if we really aren't sure that what is in the mother's womb is alive, then shouldn't we error on the side of caution? If we don't know for sure if the unborn is alive then are we not obligated to wait and see what happens?
82
@michiganrodney
The day will come in man's future, perhaps not that far off, when birth control and population reduction will become one of the most important issues facing mankind. We can't feed and house the population of our rapidly growing species now. How will we do it with unchecked growth. It won't be religious at all; it will be survival.
36
@michiganrodney, Yes, abortion is a moral issue, and when you compel women to carry all pregnancies to term, you nullify their moral consciences, their freedom of the will. There are, in some cases, compelling moral reasons to terminate a pregnancy as early as possible.
Preserving the health or ensuring the survival of a pregnant woman is only one reason. Age is another: a pregnant 12-year-old is by definition a rape victim, already deprived of choice, one whose health will be permanently affected if the pregnancy goes to term and whose fetus has a high risk of incapacitating anomalies. A woman struggling to support the children she is raising has a responsibility not to bring into her family another child to whom she cannot afford to give a decent upbringing and whose birth will relegate her family to poverty.
There are many cases in which women must exercise moral responsibility for their reproductive capability by aborting a pregnancy. If, by overturning Roe, the Supreme Court were to confer the constitutional protection of religious belief on the notion of instantaneous "personhood" of a fertilized ovum, it would silence the consciences of women during the years that shape our lives and families. And we know that depriving women of moral autonomy in this way would not only be the consequence, but is in fact the goal, of the anti-choice movement. You would deprive half of humanity of free will, which Dante called God's greatest gift to us all.
99
@michiganrodney Despite the apparent tone of tolerance in your message, isn't it just another attempt to deny women a voice in how their own lives will be led?
65
I am a pro life woman and Governor Cuomo's new abortion bill pushes abortion farther than even those who passed Roe v Wade ever intended. I thought the Democrats wanted to make abortion legal, safe and rare. Apparently not. Now they want abortions to be performed as far along in a pregnancy as possible. Even up until the ninth month. They want more women to be able to have abortions whenever they wish. Now there will be many more abortions added to the already astronomical number of 60 million that have been performed since 1973.
Abortion at any stage is the taking of innocent human life. It is even more upsetting to think a baby can be aborted at the ninth month. There is no reason for any baby to be aborted but to have a baby killed when they are about to leave the womb is unconscionable. This should never be. They feel tremendous pain and this is the worst kind of inhumanity.
Pro life groups have their work cut out for them and with hard work and grit they can stop this evil. We have President Trump to thank for being a pro life advocate and electing justices who see the evil of abortion at all stages. He has been the first president who has been helping our cause. For that we are very thankful.
48
@WPLMMT
Guess you’re fine with having the woman die to further your “pro-life” ideology? Maybe she, rather than you, should get to decide that.
103
@WPLMMT It is interesting that both sides of the
abortion issue come from a places of love.
One loving an unborn fetus the other not wanting to
ruin two beloved people's lives, or more.
14
As a woman myself, you are missing the mark almost ENTIRELY! you almost make it sound like most women who choose to have an abortion make that decision willy nilly while. Yet you fail to recognize that most women who choose to have a late term abortion are presented with devastating information related to the health of their unborn baby or about the risks to themselves. It’s so easy for others to make such strong convictions about someone else’s life when it has zero affect on them. None. When presented with devastating information that your child will likely die minutes after giving birth, please, tell me when presented with that reality how wrong it is for any mother to make that decision. These decisions are made every day when presented with heart breaking information and until you live through those experiences yourself I feel it will never be your decision to make.
What disgusts me most about your thought process is that you think most women who choose to have an abortion do so without regard, make this choice so freely or easily. It is never an easy choice and regardless of whether the mum chooses to terminate or go through with the pregnancy she is faced with life changing events. All which are very sad. Be respectful when clearly you have never lived through such a horrible experience
128
Great but when you say “only when a woman's life or health is threatened or at risk” as the bill is written that includes mental health. Which means if a woman says she will have anxiety or something bc her baby has Down Syndrome then she can claim her mental health is “at risk” and make the decision to let her baby die on the table after it has been born. So that’s something we need to talk about as a society and decide if we’re ok with that before you just run with it. It doesn’t seem right to me. Had the bill been worded to say “only when a woman's life is threatened or her physical health would be severely and irreparably compromised” id be ok with it. I have sympathy for taking mental health seriously but let’s be honest- there are too many gray areas and it’s not a sufficient to make decisions regarding the fate of a viable fetus or already born baby. If I’m wrong about this just say so - I’m trying to understand this bill.
3
@Sue Loft
Downs is pretty easy to detect in a blood test early in pregnancy and then later through common ultrasounds and I don't think people are waiting to 36 weeks if they have diagnosis and feel they can't handle a Downs baby. Our society makes that decision rather star for families that do not have above average wealth and resources to care for a handicapped child without any real support commitment from the same party that is so against abortion. With more social programs to care for Downs babies, children, and adults, more people might choose not to abort. But how can a single mother, a struggling family, a family with already 2 or more children take this on alone. And Downs can have fairly good outcomes with charming children and adults who just need some help.
There are other diseases that are much more devastating with only a few days of painful life being possible for the baby. There are pregnancies that are very dangerous for mother and baby alike with badly placed placenta or dangerous high blood pressure or cancer diagnosis for mom.
And maybe if you want these children born, you would need to provide some adoptive families or social support systems that can take on this enormous burden. Certainly a viable healthy child would find a home .. so I don't think this would ever be common or easy, everyone in the hospital would be trying to adopt that child out.
2
You all are being manipulated by a non-issue, for the sole purpose of preserving an obsolete power structure represented by Andrew Cuomo.
I know a lot of you smug, self-absorbed, highly intellectual types will gasp when you here this but..........
Your right to an abortion will never be taken away. The point is moot. The Supreme court established this principal, this RIGHT, decades ago...........and no successful challenge has ever been mounted.
Mr. Cuomo is only attempting to manipulate you through FEAR.........he's conjuring up a boogy man that simply doesnt exist.
We live in the one and only nation, society, that will FIGHT to protect an individual's right...an individual's right to anything, everything....life, liberty, and the happiness of pursuit. Never Forget this. Guns. Pot. Abortion.........it all falls into that category of unalienable rights.
Mr. Cuomo is from the inner sanctum of the Political Machine...once known as Tammany Hall.....now known as the DNC....which is NOT the Democrat Party....but a small group of powerful people that use patronage......such as funding of Abortion Clinics ........to maintain powerful positions in Government, to control elections, to maintain the Status Quo.....
Keep Mr. Cuomo in office....or else you'll lose valuable jobs, valuable govt funding, etc., etc..........
Abortion rights....yes.
Mr. Cuomo/DNC/Tammany Hall corruption.........NO.
2
Governor, your anti-life position is built on the proposition that women have choice. However, you're talking about the wrong choice.
With the exception of IVF and AI (artifical insemination), pregnancy is one of the results of intercourse. The choice to have intercourse is the important choice for a woman (and a man).
We have had laws for centuries to address situations where women are deprived of their choice to have intercourse.
Is there a serious movement in the US to repeal those laws?
1
@Mr Darcy
Have you ever spoken with a 12-year-old girl who's "uncles" rape her? Have you talked with any of the thousands of women who had a few more drinks than they could handle and did something she regretted the next morning? Or the woman whose husband is a jerk and a bully and won't take no?
And asked them why they didn't get help from the law?
1
@Rea Tarr
1. According to a survey conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, about 1% of abortions are performed where pregnancy is a result of rape. While this survey was conducted in the 1980's, this 1% estimate is supported by abortion providers' reports to state agencies in states that require such reporting.
2. Any failure of our legal system in regards to rape/incest has no bearing on abortion. One of the positive elements of the #MeToo movement is to empower women to come forward if they are victims of a crime.
"But the first one listed is freedom of religion. We cannot have true freedom of religion without separation of church and state. And the country cannot function if religious officials are dictating policy to elected officials."
So you can believe anything you want, but you can't take any action based on your beliefs? What kind of religion is that? For that matter, what kind of freedom is that?
The entire legal structure of the West has been built up under Christianity. The Romans and other pagan peoples saw nothing wrong with infanticide, slavery, genocide, torture, gladiatorial combats to the death, etc. Before Christianity came along, women were treated as inferiors who were owned by the men in their family. Over hundreds of years, Christian belief dominated Western culture and gradually became embedded in the secular law.
As recently as the 19th century, the abolitionist movement, and the struggle for women's rights, were church-based. Men who were not believers, and preferred to live a sinful and piggish life, scoffed at both from their barstools and brothels.
Of course, now that all these fine goals have been realized, it is considered safe to discard out religion. There's no chance sinful men will harass and molest women and girls, or steal all the money through manipulating the markets and laws.
I am not personally a believer, but even I can see what religion has accomplished in our society.
2
The Catholic Supreme Court has already voted in favor of religion over a citizens rights, such as where Gay rights were concerned,If we give Trump another 4 years women choice will definitely be out lawed. As it is the line between Church and State that is slowly being erased , Christianity is our State religion, as everything stops during Christmas & Easter, this is what our forefathers feared the most, as their forefathers were persecuted by state religions, & came to the new world to escape from it.Should we become a theocracy we will become a second class nation, and leave the door open to China who will rule the world. Religion in China is barely recognized, and has no say in government decisions, this is also true in Russia.We must stop trump and the republican Party in 2020, or our future is dismal. He will do anything & approve of anything to retain power.
1
@Joe Blow everything “stops at Easter” because it’s a Sunday. Many people associate Easter with candy and bunnies. Calling the US a religious star and Christianity a State Religion is just silly in light of the legal and ethical treatment of practioners of so many other religions in this country. Heck, we bend over backwards for those few who hold no religious views. Go live in a country with a real state religion and call me when you get back.
2
@Rick Williamson
Come on , Rick there is no reason to become defensive. Nothing is going to change, Politicians will continue to pander to religion, or their tenure
will be short lived. Religion has tremendous clout, & is a bane to society & progress. Religion is waning among the educated, & we will be the better for it.Having said this,I fear the reactionary trump & the Republican Party
may force the poor to get out their wire hangers.
Pro choice but regulate .There are standards that the State expects for all medical procedures and abortion is no exception .
Hospitals and doctors need to meet standards of care To kill a fetus in utero after 20 weeks or not providing care after a child is born so it will die is wrong.
My son was born blue and not breathing .He was resuscitated .He is a great athlete and summa from IVY.There was no discussion in the delivery room asking for parents permission.
4
if you want to know where the NYT is, note that they're publishing the words of a man that just signed a radical abortion bill, a bill that gives pause even to reasonable pro-choice advocates.
cuomo is a "man" with no cover, no shame.
1
Mr Cuomo. You poorly choose your words and are misdirecting and creating a misleading conversation.
Tell the truth!
2
Mr. Cuomo's passion for his deed outpaced any other moderating instinct that might have prompted him to demur from putting pen to paper.
Consequently, he did the predictable. He engaged in inaccurracies, overstatements and misstatements in order to assuage his bruised ego by pro-life comments from POTUS.
It is not very important that POTUS once claimed to be pro-choice. It is very important to note that POTUS IS pro-life!
Cuomo, like many in the pro-choice crowd, are guilty of wrong- headed choices. Remember, pro-life vs. pro-choice is really a choice between whether a human is allowed to live vs. whether a woman is allowed to enjoy her legally-endowed right to do as she chooses with her own body, and to the body of a human fetus that happens to be present in her body!!!
Cuomo is a rash, shallow, egotist, who wants to be known as the man who led New York to the decision to grant woman in New York the most generous perk (but, simultaneously, the most egregious judgment against life) imaginable.
We are left to conclude this man is comfortable balancing a gift to women against a death sentence to new borns, if the woman chooses not to give birth to her child.
Does this sound like something to crow about?!!
2
In Nazi Germany there were laws allowing the sterilization of “unnecessary” people. Most Judges went along. At what point, if any, does one’s moral principles require a public official, Judge or Legislator, to say “this is wrong.”
If Governor Cuomo and other Catholic public officials believe that “abortion” is morally wrong, hiding behind the First Amendment appears to be a “cop out.” Be honest, admit (59% Catholics) that abortion is acceptable in certain limited situations. Drop the hypocrisy!
Blah, blah, blah. Every pregnancy is a threat to a woman's "health." Been that way since the beginning of time. The rates of death in childbirth only 100 years ago would have justified every pregnant woman having an abortion under that standard. That's the loophole that makes your law so offensive to so many.
2
Oh, so the next time you’re in need of medical care, shall we take you to a 19th century hospital? Maybe try isolation instead of antibiotics?
What exactly is your point? That medicine is too advanced, or that women shouldn’t have access to it?
4
@James K. Lowden My point is that the term "heath of the mother" is a big enough loophole to drive a truck through. What does it mean? Obviously different from "life of the mother" or it would not be mentioned separately. Could it be "emotional health"? I assume so.
1
@Southern Man
"Blah, blah, blah. Every pregnancy is a threat to a woman's "health." Been that way since the beginning of time."
Right, exactly. That's why women cannot be forced to remain pregnant against their wills.
I understand that you don't believe that women are people who have the right to make their own medical decisions and protect their health, but thankfully the 13th and 14th amendments disagree with you.
4
Maybe we should try the Northam approach, let's have the mother deliver the baby, make sure it's alive and viable and then give the mother the knife. Should be easy for many of you to do given your cheering for such a barbaric law. You know even the Socialists of Western Europe don't allow for such horrific crimes.
2
Do you suppose one day passes in this country, now, today, when a mother gives birth to a baby with a fatal, irremediable defect? Don’t you know that every day babies are allowed to die that could have been kept alive tortuously, expensively, but only briefly? Because it happens. No one wishes it. That’s life. And death.
For every ten of those cases, there are some where the tragedy comes to light slightly earlier, possibly threatening the mother’s life. Something must be done. I suppose your medical training tells you, “wait and see”. I’m sure you’d agree if it was your daughter we’re talking about.
These are the circumstances you describe as handing a knife to the mother. Please, sir, have you no decency, no compassion?
3
There is NEVER a need to kill a baby to save a mother's life. There's a reason the vast majority of OB/GYNs will not do them. Listen to abortionist describe the procedure in congressional testimony: https://youtu.be/8szDctI9lXM
If you're not horrified, well, you're Andrew Cuomo.
1
Giggling happily, I direct Mr. Cuomo - a good Catholic - to the editorial of the Times’ own Ross Douthat on this very topic. I’d also remind him of his father. A far superior approach to a thorny topic by a far superior politician and man.
1
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" remains the most abjectly neglected but absolutely essential law in this nation of pumped up religious fanatics.
3
Cumo says third trimester abortions are rare so no regulation is needed. Lynching is much rarer but clearly regulation is needed. Why?
2
Falsehoods? Under the new ornproposed laws, a non can choose to kill her seconds from birth baby if she can get one Gosnell, I mean doctor, to sign off in it, for any reason. The governor of Virginia said mom and her doctor get to decide whether her baby is allowed to live, even after it's born.
If what progressives actually support is infanticide, why don't they just say so.
Recall what democrats used to tell us, "Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare"? They lied.
1
Infanticide
Exodus 1 shows us how God feels about infanticide, Governors Cuomo and Northam.
Pharaoh commanded: if it is a son, then you shall kill him
19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they [e]are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and [f]grew very mighty. 21 And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He [g]provided households for them
Separation of church and state?
By the way, it’s not infanticide. But thanks for playing.
3
Shame on you Andrew. You should not be espousing your Catholic faith. How can you support killing a new born life? This is a horrible day for America and is NOT who we are. Shame on you Andrew!
3
Abortion rights, or the right to murder innocent, helpless, viable babies in the 8th and 9th months?
The Democrat Party has gone totally off the cliff. What is now legal in New York, is the stuff of nightmares, things the previous generation of Democrats never ever dreamed of and would totally and utterly reject.
Shame on you Governor Cuomo, and shame on every Democrat who supports his murderous and barbaric agenda!
3
Where would Andrew Cuomo be today if his own mother had a late term abortion? “Andrew Cuomo” would certainly not be around to be the Governor of New York or write this unscientific and irrational piece of op-ed for the New York Times…! What if your own mother had an abortion when she was pregnant with you? Would you be around to affirm your rights as a woman? Where would you be then? Is there anything more precious than a human infant that grows into full fledge human being in the entire universe?
1
Widespread inexpensive or free long-acting effective birth control will do more to limit abortions than these feeding frenzies that demonize abortions and then also premarital sex and often even marital sex that does not lead to family sizes that are bad for the environment, families,mothers, children ... or that force women to abort pregnancies from failed birth control. Women have 25-30 years of fertility with children coming every 2 or even less years. Tubal ligation is likely the secret solution for the faithful.
Teen birth and abortion rates are way down, because teenage girls do not want to get pregnant but some of them do have sex. Married women do get lots of abortions.
Gov. Cuomo has been able to move past his church's teachings to come up with a policy that sounds very reasonable. It is never reasonable to kill or risk permanent damage to mothers to save a fetus that may or may not be viable. There are babies born with terrible disabilities that our society does not chose to help families deal with, and some of these are painful or cruel to the babies themselves. In the end, mothers and families need to make these decisions in private ..
I would be shocked if babies are ever killed or left dead if they are viable .. and if so, it could very well be due to inadequate prenatal care which would allow a longer period to decide on the proper path to take. If you want people to chose life, make some family help for these babies available ..
2
Cuomo is talented and being sanctimonious about political positions that are very safe in New York. He also, as is his predilection, disingenuously selects facts that help his case while ignoring inconvenient ones, like how his bill eliminates two extra doctors to certify health exceptions, or the vast loopholes for mental anguish.
4
Bravo to Governor Cuomo and the State of New York. Certainly in this day and age, as even as it should have been even before Roe v.Wade, a woman's body and her choices about herself should be left up to her, not to a government led by a president who is determined to put woman in their place as he sees it...back to the 1950s and early 60s when the good ole boys were in power and determined what was right for everyone as they saw it. Seems President Trump is trying to be somewhat of a power hungry dictator by saying he will determine what is right for woman and what is not. Unfortunately, he also has pushed that attitude towards many other issues as well. A most dangerous man. We cannot allow this to happen, so keep on helping woman be able to make their own decisions.
2
Governor Cuomo,
Excellent letter and I applaud your action in calling Trump out on his hypocrisy. Thank you.
1
There’s a baby. On a table. Separate from any other human in the room. But those other humans will have a discussion about whether or not to kill it? Sorry folks, I was in the room with my wife for the delivery of our two boys...I wouldn’t have asked her what she wanted for breakfast and expected a worthwhile answer. If Democrats want to kill babies, ok, but call it what it is and stop running from what you really want, as Ms Tran, Governor “ Coon Man” (according to the NYT) and Governor Cuomo and the entire state legislature of New York have explicitly agreed.
3
@skyfiber So if one of your boys was suffering great pain and wasn't going to live long you'd not want the right to opt for a DNR action? You'd want him revived to suffer more?
The tide is turning. Andrew Cuomo is incorrect in stating that most people support abortion. More and more people are against abortion and vehemently opposed to late term abortions.
He was gleeful when he signed the late term abortion bill and those watching while he did so were applauding and clapping showing their approval. He even lit up the World Trade Center building pink to celebrate this new abortion law. There was no remorse but he was ecstatic. How dreadful.
He has always supported abortion and it was his goal to make abortion as easy to obtain one. The facts do not lie. President Trump was was correct in stating that Andrew Cuomo wanted to make abortion available up until the ninth month. The result of this travesty is that more women will decide to kill their babies with the help of a wiling doctor. This is disgusting and shows just how sick we have become as a nation.
4
“Andrew Cuomo is incorrect in stating that most people support abortion.”
No, Mr. Cuomo is correct that most people support abortion rights.
2
White was an interesting choice of colors for congresswomen to wear in solidarity on the Chinese Lunar New Year -- which happened to coincide with the State of the Union address. In China the color white is the color of death. Congresspersons on both sides of the aisle, please use your God-given power to help bring an end to the evil of abortion, the evil killing of helpless children which becomes more blatant and calloused every year. Perhaps in a sign of hope, did you notic what color was Stacey Abrams wearing for her response?
3
@Andrew Allen As an anti-abortion male you have the right to abstain from sex for your entire life or get a vasectomy. That's what you get to control.
2
Don't like them, don't have one.
8
Pro Choice is fine to a point: thereafter it becomes repugnant and too closely resembles infanticide. Anyone who has worked in a high volume abortion clinic where late term foetuses are examined will tell you it becomes repulsive and few stay in the role as a complete career. Why? Because there is a point where foetuses become so human, its embarrassing discarding them.
The problem is defining the point.
As a society, better to err on the side of only allowing early term abortion and forbidding it beyond that, than allow abortion all the way to cervical dilatation.
It has nothing to do with religion, faiths, beliefs, the Constitution or 'womens' rights'.
It's just plain common sense.
4
Mr. Cuomo,
The "greater shame," sir, lies largely with you and the former party of the powerless and the poor, the so-called progressive Democrats.
No matter human fetal viability and a DNA which makes their bodies unique, you have signed a law to allow tragic anti-mothers to execute them.
There are other, less barbaric solutions. Sign a new law for more aid to pregnant women, before during and after the birth of their child.
Thanks to our mothers, we both got our chance to live and leave the world better for our being here. Betterment applies to all humankind, no matter where or who.
Shame on those who deny that right to live. Shame on you.
3
Governor, there is clearly a difference between abortion rights and infanticide. In addition, you misrepresent the polling on abortion rights. While majorities support abortion rights, that support withers away on late term abortions. Americans do support certain restrictions. The Democratic Party is playing with fire on this issue, maybe not in New York, but I could see Trump wrapping this issuecaround the necks of Democrats in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
2
The time to stop that was 2016; Bernie sealed the fate of many women with his nonsensical dream.
Politics is chess not checkers
3
Basically agree but don't give Trump ammo with over kill (pun intended) by loosening restrictions on late term abortions with your recent legislation.
In the spirit of Roe vs Wade, late term abortions should only be allowed if the life of the woman is in dire jeopardy and no other reason otherwise you start to get into infanticide and give right wingers legit ammo.
You remind me of right wingers in gun states. When a democrat is elected that "threatens" their right to own a gun they will pass "over kill" legislation giving terrorists, dogs, insane people the right to own a gun with their important second amendment rights protected.
2
Still not clear what following means. To quote. Not some right wing outlet but an unedited recording :” they would resciciutate the baby if necessary, keep it comfortable, and the mother and her doctor would decide what to do...”
Do what?
3
You would think the “Pro-Life” party would be for a robust social safety net to help needy children and support access to contraception. The “Pro-Life” party is for neither.
The Pro Life movement is a “Pro-Birth” movement. Once a child is born, pro-life people could care less about them.
The Pro-Life movement is nothing more than misogyny. It’s dominated by white Christian men who think women should be under their exclusive control. Sadly, so many women in the pro-life movement and the Republican Party are nothing but doormats.
289
@Sterling What is more selfish than killing the unborn as a matter of choice or convenience?
4
@Sterling - "The Pro Life movement is a “Pro-Birth” movement."
It is the "forced-birth" movement, as they are not simply for birth, they want to force pregnancy and birth onto people codified into law, regardless.
@John - "What is more selfish than killing the unborn as a matter of choice or convenience?"
We should check with the Catholic Church where priests demanded nuns have abortions for the priest's convenience.
40
@Marie I prefer to call it "pro-forced pregnancy." If you reframe the language, it takes on a far more unsettling and appropriate tone.
10
The goal of President Trump and his new found allies in the anti abortion movement, is to bring us back to the days when women and doctors were jailed as criminals for terminating a pregnancy. Our experience with such criminalization of pregnancy termination is that it is cruel, unenforceable and futile. Governor Cuomo speaks the truth. Attempting to enforce religious beliefs by use of the criminal law is contrary to our country's commitment to freedom of religion and freedom from state enforced religious dogma.
2
As a physician, there are many misconceptions and misunderstandings on both sides of the abortions debate, and Mr. Cuomo is an example of this. Clarity on the medical facts of abortion (medical indications, role of prenatal care, late second and early third term fetal viability, statistics on number of abortions and at which week etc...) are lacking and represent a foothold for politicians to engineer fear and mistrust, regardless of ones beliefs.
I suggest the NYT get a physician with neutral political beliefs to outline abortion, the medical facts and then have a constitutional lawyer state the current law surrounding it all.
5
I honestly couldn't care less about reproductive rights.
I think we should pull back on the stick and address the REAL issue that encompasses this and many other issues: one growing sector of the population that is attempting to use our governmental powers to force their religion and beliefs on the rest of us.
When religion becomes part of ruling, people die. In droves.
11
Thank you Governor Cuomo for your thoughtful opinion piece and for your continued support for a woman’s right to choose. I note that abortion opponents rarely if ever consider the woman part of the debate. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is in many cases the most difficult decision a woman will ever make. She deserves privacy and respect, not self-righteous shaming by the religious right. I am continually astounded by the hypocrisy of those who fixate on the evils of late term abortion without possession of the facts, while turning a blind eye to the suffering of children in this country and abroad.
1
The issue of whether or when a fetus is a person deserving of equal rights as a mother is one that will probably never be resolved by science or consensus. It depends on your definition of what makes us human. Is it our genes, the ability to survive independently, the ability to feel pain, the ability to think, our life experience, or something else entirely? The answer varies for each of us.
Without consensus, the best the law can do is recognize and respect that individual opinions differ and protect the ability for each to make their own decision. Anything else means imposing the beliefs of a minority on us all.
3
Here, here! We cannot "legislate morality" and that's just what Donald Trump, the most immoral man ever to be president, has just proposed. This attack on third trimester abortions, like the wall, was just the usual red meat for his base. It says more about the State of our Disunion and disregard for the Constitution, as Gov. Cuomo pointed out, than anything else.
125
If we cannot "legislate morality," do you realize how many crimes you have just legitimized, as murder and theft. And do hate crimes have any basis in morality?
3
@fFinbar You missed Gov. Cuomo's point on the "separation of church and state" which implies, in this case legislating Christian religious morality.
3
@Paul Wortman We can't legislate morality? That line was thoroughly debunked decades ago. When was the last time a politician said, "I want to pass this bill because it's the wrong thing to do?"
'My religion cannot demand favoritism as I execute my public duties." I wish Mr. Cuomo luck when he tries to justify this position during final judgement.
3
@Mark
I think Mr. Cuomo will probably be okay. Christ himself recognized a separation between church and state: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
3
@Mark
His use of the word ‘execute’ is appropriate, though, when discussing advocacy of infanticide.
1
Yes. And the Romans/Caesar/the State took lives, while God/human nature gives lives.
2
These are people inserting superstition religion and the rule of law between a woman, her life, and her doctor. These are the people that force birth onto others. These are the people who would force you into death by fiat and inflexible law leaving your doctor unable to save your life.
The law was put into affect to give doctors the flexibility to save a woman's life rather than have to watch her die, hands tied.
It is always the same. These people don't trust women. If they did they wouldn't believe that they have to set the rules for them. It is the ultimate mansplaining.
178
@Marie
Are sonogram images "superstitious"? Are images of torn-up fetuses religious images? Advocates for abortion are the most anti-scientific people around. The reasoning is: it's not human until it looks like a baby; it's not a baby unless we want it to be a baby; it's not a baby until it's out of the womb; and if it makes it out of the womb, but we wish it hadn't, it isn't really there.
Marie,
When an abortion is performed no matter the stage of pregnancy, a fetus/baby's life ends. That is a given. The life in the womb has no rights and cannot defend themselves. When the baby is out of the womb and abortion is performed it is infanticide. This is the worst kind of punishment we can subject our babies to. Doesn't that bother you. It certainly bothers many of us. We are enraged and will not remain silent about this horrendous abuse.
The Governor defends the RHA act which he signed into law as simply a reiteration of Roe v Wade; attacks on it are formulated by a hated triumvirate: Trump, ‘extreme right-wing activists’, and the Catholic Church. The Governor does not address the question of his or Democratic political posturing or the role of left-wing activists in formulating NY States RHA.
The Governor leaves out a fundamental question with regards to the RHA: When does the State recognize a life, requiring full legal rights and protection?
What the Governor, and activists, has produced is a law removing certain requirements and introducing vagaries in definition (unfortunately a tactic of activists) so as to strengthen abortion rights and weaken restrictions that may result in a “live birth”.
Among the removed restrictions: additional Dr. be present for abortions after 20 weeks in the case of a live birth; that such babies be provided “immediate legal protection under the laws of the state of New York.”
I suppose we could apply the Gosnell rule to the Governors new law: How would Kermit Gosnell, an abortion Dr. currently serving life in prison, be treated under the new law?
The Governor’s argument simply seems to deflect attention to the right, while ignoring his own political posturing and relations with activists. Yet the fundamental question remains: when is a life afforded full protection by the State?
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/02/addressing-new-yorks-new-abortion-law/
1
Thank you, Governor Cuomo, for the RHA and for speaking out against these harmful, persistent lies.
Women and teenage girls are not chattel and must not be forced for give birth against their will.
5
Abortion laws exist only to punish poor women. A rich woman can have her procedure elsewhere and no "pro-life" person will say even one word. One rule for the rich, one for the poor. American justice.
238
@gratis If I am not mistaken, abortion was first endorsed and justified as a way to reduce birthrates among poor (and black) women.
3
@gratis It would not punish poor women if they were able to go to a facility in their area.
2
@Southern Man
"First endorsed"?
Abortion has existed since women could get pregnant.
16
Writing at Townhall on Sunday, Kevin McCullough recalls Rush Limbaugh’s vintage observation that “If the Left (Democrats) ever told America what they actually believed they’d never win another election.” McCullough makes the point that every now and then, however, the mask slips, and we are able, as Michael Walsh has maintained for some time, to see the face of evil clearly.
McCullough was responding to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s revelation that he believed it was appropriate for a couple of medical professionals and a mother to decide to terminate the life of a newborn child, as a recently failed bill in the Virginia Legislature would have permitted. Similar legislation just passed, to gruesome celebration, in New York, and other such measures are pending or have passed in other states controlled by Democrats.
Those who believe that abortion amounts to infanticide have had their worst fears confirmed. Those of us who reject the thought of the Left owe it to our fellow Americans of good faith to explain why this is so, and Northam’s gaffe (defining “gaffe” as a politician accidentally telling the truth) is just one small revelation.
2
An abortion after the child is viable - a few days before its birth - is immoral and a law making it "legal" does not change that one iota. There are of course very rare isolated cases for the physical health of the mother, but that is not at issue here as that was already coverage .... this is infanticide on demand as uncomfortable as that may make you feel but that is the law you signed and stand behind.
1
I'm pro-choice but systematically allowing the abortion of a fetus after viability absolutely risks legalizing infanticide.
It's not about religion but science.
2
The thing is, even if the Christian Right is successful in getting Roe overturned - even if they manage to get their pocket judges to pass laws all over the country banning abortion - it's not going to end it. This issue will literally NEVER be settled. Ever.
Pro-Life people feel they have a biblical calling to stop abortion completely. They also use this issue to fight back against those they think look down on them and their religion.
Pro-choice people will fight to the last (wo)man to keep a right that has been legal in this country for four decades; a right that is similarly enjoyed by every other advanced nation; a right that both pro-choice AND pro-life people (gasp!) take advantage of in roughly equal numbers; and a right that is fundamental to the health and well-being of a society.
So, back and forth we will fight, it seems, through this ugly cornfield. Until it gets to the point where both sides realize they can't defeat the other. Until both sides accept that while they will never agree on abortion, there are things both sides can do - together - to ensure that far fewer abortions occur. For example, by making contraception free, widely available, and distributed to all who want/need it.
Despite what the pro-lifers might believe, repealing the women's right to choose would set this country back a hundred years. And given that the overwhelming majority of Americans support access to abortion, the American people will not tolerate that.
Just look at Ireland.
2
Governor Cuomo writes:
"It’s worth recalling that in 1999, long before he ran for president, Mr. Trump described himself as “very pro-choice.” Today he claims to be anti-choice, and he shamelessly courts the religious right to win votes."
Cuomo calling Trump shameless - that is rich!
Cuomo, just like his fellow NY'er President Trump, hails from the same species of slick NY'er that think they're smarter and know better than everyone else. The biggest difference is Trump actually 'worked' in the real world - the crass, grubby world of NY real estate. Cuomo has been on the government dole during his whole career - mostly in the crass, grubby, smug, entitled world of NY politics.
Let's face it, as Cuomo considers running for President, he is suddenly pivoting hard left as the Democrats have moved from Clinton triangulation to AOC progressivism. This eye-rolling column is just part of his new schtick.
Cuomo is probably the only candidate who's shamelessness should have us all shuddering - he's the one potential candidate who would make an even worse president than Trump.
19
@Common Sense
I wouldn't argue with you regarding Cuomo's provenance, but Trump - real world? Please. Born into wealth, cosseted his entire life, focused on indulging himself without fear of consequences because he's been shielded by daddy's money and a platoon of lawyers? That's not any real world I would recognize.
36
What do you expect? They both grew up on the same terminal glacial moraine, though a couple of miles apart. Me, I grew up at the bottom of the same moraine, about equidistant from both. They are where they are; and I am where I am. Still at the bottom of the hill, and you know what flows downhill.
4
@Common Sense - "Cuomo calling Trump shameless"
Takes one to know one?
Did Trump describe himself as "very pro-choice” before? Does he now identify as very anti-choice? Was that a yes? Does he "shamelessly court the religious right" having lived an amoral life? That would be another yes? Yes?
@Common Sense - "think they're smarter and know better than everyone else."
Which is exactly what the Forced-Birth people think they are. Smarter and know better than everyone else. That is the whole point of the Forced-Birth movement. That they know more than everyone else, and they don't trust anyone else, so they want what they "know" to be law. To force everyone to their belief. Rather than allow women, with their significant others if tht is the case, along with their doctors to make the right decision these people want to force a single option on all women in all circumstances: pregnancy, birth, and either adoption or child-rearing.
With the law as it is women can opt not to have a abortion if they don't want one. However they aren't forced to die if their life is in danger. Options VS strictures.
8
The only person spreading falsehoods is Andrew Cuomo.
The definition of "health" in his legislation is so broad that, as Dickens once put it, "you could drive a coach and six" through it. If his bill does not permit infanticide, there is NO reason to oppose the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act: the bill would not affect the abortion liberty, but ensure the basic Constitutional standard that a person born alive is a citizen with a right not to be deprived of life under the XIV Amendment. But Andrew Cuomo and Patty Murray know that, and they choose to spread falsehoods to pander to the extreme abortion political base that fuels their party's coffers and politics. The Governor is a disgrace.
53
@JOHN
What does "born alive" mean? Born at 20 weeks, requiring the family to keep the baby alive artificially so it can grow? At whose expense? Why are we so afraid of natural death? A baby born at 20 weeks is a baby born to die. If a family wants to try to keep it alive, that is their choice, and it should be their family resources that are used to do so. Alternatively, it takes only pennies to keep babies in poor countries safe from death by diarrhea. What's a better use of resources?
11
No one is advocating killing a baby born alive.
11
An unpleasant fact that many refuse to accept. A fetus can feel pain at 8 weeks. To overlook or pretend that this does not exist, is inhumane, selfish, and barbaric.
2
@DG ". A fetus can feel pain at 8 weeks. " False. Try closer to 30.
1
Cuomo has the nerve to criticize extreme rhetoric when he defines opposition to his abortion bill as "part of the far-right’s escalation of its assault on a woman’s constitutional rights."
It is laughable, really. Nowhere in this diatribe does Cuomo deal with the central criticism of this law - the scope of the meaning of the word "health." He does not deal with this because in fact that scope is infinitely wide. Is a woman claiming her abortion depresses here entitled to Cuomo's "health exception"? If so, it is no exception at all since it rests entirely on subjective self-justification.
The statistics Cuomo sites are laughable also, since only a tiny minority of Americans supports third trimester abortions. As to lighting up the building in pink, I stand in awe of how far Cuomo and the left has come since the days of safe, legal and rare. Was that line ever meant seriously? Apparently not any longer.
2
Sorry to inform you of this, Andrew, but premature babies born after 22 weeks have survived and thrived. We've come a long way with technology since 1973, when Roe was decided.
Trump cannot outlaw abortion. He could appoint Supreme Court justices that vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But then each state would decide abortion law. In New York, and most other states, elective abortion would be available, perhaps with a cutoff of 20 weeks. Governors who signed bills outlawing all abortions would be thrown out by the voters. So please stop your scaremongering.
Finally, I cannot understand how a health professional could provide an elective abortion of a fetus past 20 weeks. How do you sleep at night?
45
@Erik Have you read the stories of women who chose to have an abortion, in consultation with her physician, after 24 weeks gestation? Every story I have read has been absolutely heart-breaking, typically with a fetus with gross abnormalities who would not survive birth, or would survive birth but not for very long and not without considerable pain. Or the continuation of the pregnancy would cause grave harm to the mother.
I have spent considerable time in a NICU - and while the odds of survival of a micro-premie are significantly better than a few decades ago (when my own micro-premie was born), the pain and suffering of these micro-premies can be great, and the earlier in gestation such a micro-premie is born, the greater the likelihood of significant lifetime disability.
43
@Concerned Citizen I was talking about an elective abortion of a healthy fetus between 20 and 24 weeks. There is no justification for it, and again, I don't know how anyone witnessing it could not have sleepless nights.
2
@Erik Then don't witness one. No one is asking you to nor seeking your approval nor needing to offer you a "justification". It's simply none of your business.
48
"I just signed the Reproductive Health Act into law to protect against the Republicans’ efforts to pack the Supreme Court with extreme conservatives to overturn the constitutional protections recognized in Roe v. Wade."
Really governor? How could your state law stand up to a Supreme Court ruling that reverses Roe v. Wade?
1
Abortion was an issue in the Thirteen Colonies prior to the American Revolution. It was permitted in some colonies and prohibited in others, Since there was no agreement on the issue, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention opted to leave the matter to the states. This is why the Constitution is mute on abortion, as it is on many issues.
The problem with Roe v Wade is that everybody knows there is no constitutional right to abortion. Roe v Wade is not based on the Constitution but on on “penumbras.” Justice William O. Douglas, who concurred whit the majority decision in Roe vs. Wade, explained that "specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” The theory that constitutional rights should be based on penumbras observable to some but not others is dangerous. It means that unelected federal judges, not the people's representatives, decide what is and what isn't a constitutional right.
The Supreme Court should reverse Roe v. Wade. Congress should react by sending an amendment to the states that would make abortion a constitutional right. If three quarters of the states ratified the amendment, abortion would become a constitutional right; if not, the issue should be left to the individual states to decide, which, as Governor Cuomo notes, is what New York had done by passing its Reproductive Health Act.
8
@William Case: Sir: PRIVACY is not about secrecy and concealment; Privacy is about the autonomy of the inner being each person is in their own mind known only to themselves. Several of the "founders" were very extraordinary geniuses, some eccentric, and all real-world people. Perhaps not entirely unlike Justice William O. Douglas.
10
@JVM
The word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were aware that abortion was an issue; they opted to leave it to the states. The theory that freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures encompasses the right to abortion is absurd. If the delegates had meant to recognize abortion as a right, they would have written an amendment that read: "The right of women to an abortion shall not be infringed."
1
@William Case Anybody who thinks the religious right will stop with "state option" is delusional.
16
I read a story about a mother of 3 young children (7, 4 and 2) who was pregnant with twins. later in the pregnancy, one of the twins showed as badly deformed, unlikely to live, likely to kill his brother twin, and possibly kill his mother if she tried to deliver him.
This poor woman chose (later in the pregnancy) to terminate the one twin to save the life of the other --and hers.
That's the same choice I would make. What mother would risk making her children motherless?
4
@paul And I think society is fully prepared to handle such extreme cases with very difficult medical conditions when they individually occur. That said, I solemnly assure you, there would not be millions upon millions of abortions if many of those were not done for far less compelling reasons--and dare I say it--out of "convenience" for not handling the responsibilities of the human sexual act.
1
@Falcon78
The New York law does address this, by giving the mother (with doctor's consent) the right to a late-term abortion.
Some argue that women are not capable of making rational decisions (the doctor could also be a woman, remember), so we need the men on the Supreme Court to make this decision for her.
If you believe in freedom, then get big government out of a women's uterus.
2
@Falcon78
I can't think of a worse reason to have a baby than "I had sex."
2
Every law in our nation against the killing of another or the taking of another's property is an enshrinement of religious beliefs. The convenient delusion of the Left and their fanatical religious belief in some "right" to kill is the epitome of one religious belief imposed on the society. It is amazing to see the level of delusion on those who constantly claim to protect the weak insist on the right to kill the weakest.
2
Several years ago, a journal article was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics entitled, "After-Birth Abortion" making the case that parents ought to have the inalienable right to kill their infant after it is born because there is, in essence, no difference between a born infant and a pre-born infant besides location, environment and possibly size. Cuomo and all pro-abortionists can not have it both ways. Either the baby, born or pre-born is a person or he/she is not.
1
The governor wants it both ways. He says his oath is not to the Roman Catholic Church but rather to the State of New York. Yet he wants to proclaim himself a member of the Roman Catholic Church, but by disdaining her teachings he places himself firmly outside of the Church.
Either the good Cardinal Dolan ought to excommunicate the apostate, or the apostate ought to make his exit from the Body of Christ.
3
It appears to me that Gov. Cuomo is trying to burnish his progressive credentials and his support from women voters in anticipation of seeking the Democratic nomination for President (long shot) or Vice President (not out of the question).
Inasmuch as the State of the Union address was delivered last evening, Gov. Cuomo (and his speechwriters) clearly had prepared this opinion piece well in advance of the SOTU speech, and with the foreknowledge and cooperation of the NYT.
I suppose I should not be surprised that the NYT would be so overtly supportive of Gov. Cuomo's efforts to achieve higher office.
3
Mr. Cuomo,
I am still nauseated at the idea of aborting a baby after a 24 week gestation. And I am happy that in Virginia we did not pass the kind of law you passed in NY.
Your practice has nothing to do with women rights. But it has to do with human rights - the rights of the child in the woman’s womb to NOT being executed. Please! Support ADOPTION instead.
3
@Virginia Grandma So if, hopefully never, you have a grandchild born that will live a mere matter of days, or even minutes, in nothing but agony, you want his parents not to have the right to prevent that? Really?
2
Nice that you can pick and choose which “constitutional rights” you’re going to protect. Second Amendment rights are specifically stated in the Constitution; abortion rights derive from a Supreme Court decision. I don’t understand how you can believe in one without equal belief in the other. You either believe in the Constitution or you don’t.
1
Thanks, Governor Cuomo. Republicans talk endlessly about personal liberty and reducing the scope of government, but they are complete hypocrites when it comes to women's bodies.
Andrew, one day people will look at the idea abortions - not related to protecting health of mother or unviable fetus and particularly late term - as a moral atrocity. It’s just a matter of time. You will be on the wrong side of history.
5
Nope-- not buying this, and neither is most of the country. Maybe-- maybe-- you can quibble about whether abortion is a reasonable or moral choice in the first trimester. But that's not the position you've chosen-- you've argued for a right to abort, rather, to kill, a viable, full-term baby. People don't want that-- but at least it showed them what you and the rest of the left have really become.
4
@DavidBeautifully written
1
I love to be lectured by a megalomaniac who says I and people like me who are good, kind, law abiding religious people have no place as a Conservative citizen have in "his" state. Thats something that not even Trump has uttered about any citizen.
4
As long as my tax dollars fund these actions, we have every right to question the law regardless of religion, sex, socio-economic class, etc. The fact that you drag religion into this is irrelevant to the context of the law. The proposed Virginia Bill does allow late-term abortion up the moment the baby comes out of the mother's womb. A woman's right to abortion may be a fundamental right, but when those rights infringe upon murder, we all deserve our say.
4
I am no fan of the only governor to shut down the subway. Cuomo is a competent governor, but he has stymied efforts to shed sunlight on Albany’s goings on, and has been disingenuous regarding the MTA.
He deserves recognition and applause, though, for this essay. It takes a modicum of courage to sign a bill that the right can characterize as infanticide, and to forthrightly defend the right of women to control their own bodies and lives.
Thank you, governor. And, next time, keep the subway open.
3
In 1965, the Massachusetts's Legislature was considering a bill that would permit the sale of contraception in the state. The Catholic Church did not oppose the bill. Instead, Cardinal Cushing made the following statement: "I as a Catholic have absolutely no right in my thinking to foist by legislation or through other means, my doctrines of my church upon others. It is important to note that Catholics do not need the support of the civil law to be faithful to their religious convictions." Sadly, today the Church has abandoned that position. Instead, the Church has chosen to rope itself to the Republican Party and demand that the doctrines of the Church be enacted into the criminal law. Governor Cuomo, who now faces calls for his excommunication, has written an essay consistent with John F. Kennedy's address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers, on the issue of his religion on Sept. 12, 1960. The Church would be wise to return to the view stated by Cardinal Cushing and President Kennedy.
2
You are wrong in your presentment and conclusion. Third trimester abortion is not equal to contraception. Picking and choosing quotes made on other subjects is lying.
3
@Charles L.
The governor has taken a position that contravenes the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. By doing so, he has placed himself outside of the Church, thus effectively excommunicating himself. A formal excommunication would not be out of order but that's up to Church authorities. Moreover, the governor ought to undo his hypocrisy by formally leaving the Church. You're either all the way in or you're all the way out.
1
@David I do not recall calls for excommunication for conservative Catholic politicians who favor capital punishment, which also contravenes teachings of the Church. That consistency would be required by your position that Catholic politicians most follow Church teachings in their public positions.
1
As a parent of two teenage daughters in Iowa, where our rightwing governor has gone on record saying she would support a fetal personhood law, I want to thank Governor Cuomo for this clear and cogent articulation of why New York passed this important law protecting the rights of women (and girls) in his state to make their own reproductive health care decisions.
If Roe falls and our governor gets her way, then I'm sure my family will not be the only one in Iowa that will relocate (or at least try to relocate) to a state such as New York, where we can feel confident that our daughters will not be subjected to involuntary reproductive servitude. Of course, as usual in this country, money buys choices, and so basically it'll be people who have resources who flee, which will only further deepen the red versus blue state divide.
But probably that's part of the Republican endgame. One good way to transform Iowa from a purple to a reliably red state would be for pro-choice Democratic voting families like ours to get the heck out of here. It's a shame, because Iowa has a lot going for it, including many progressive traditions.
6
I strongly believe in the woman’s right to choose and agree with the Governor in the vital importance of the separation of Church and state in a functioning pluralistic society and democracy. As usual the hard right distorts the actual nature of the bill in order to inflame and incite their base in the hope of imposing their views on the majority of Americans who disagree. They always do it by using hysteria and impassioned exaggeration and are intellectually dishonest in presenting their opinions.
8
I agree with Mr. Cuomo’s position defending a woman’s right of privacy to make a choice regarding her pregnancy. The weakness that the right exploits in its attacks, I believe, centers on the ambiguity regarding 3rd term abortions for the reason of “protecting a woman’s health.” Opponents of abortion paint this as a screen that allows women to abort on demand, even at this late time. While it is unlikely that this ever happens, Mr. Cuomo and others skirt this concern rather than addressing it.
2
@Ed100 It is easily demonstrable that "this" happens quite often. The pro-choice Guttmacher Institute has statistics on this. Late term abortions for reasons of endangerment to the woman's life or deformity of the baby are NOT the majority reasons for this act.
1
Thank you, Gov. Cuomo. The religious right has indeed stepped up its disinformation campaign on social media, with a constant drumbeat of 'New York has legalized infanticide' tropes. Evidently they believe that there is an epidemic of women who 'change their minds' at the last moment of pregnancy, and that women and doctors are conspiring to murder babies. Revolting.
Medical decisions must be made by a woman and her doctor, not politicians. Facts matter.
126
@Comp I dare you to educate yourself withfacts from an OB/GYN who has treated hundreds women with high risk, dangerous pregnancies. https://youtu.be/8szDctI9lXM
Thank you, Governor Cuomo! More elected officials should adopt your concise statement that their alligiance is to the laws of their states and country, not to the observance rules of the Catholic Church or those of any other religion.
8
Cuomo isnt concerned with protecting NYers rights as much as he's concerned to appear the most left out of all the presidential aspirants whose goal it is to confiscate our money. So noticeable in this piece is that the fetus is barely mentioned. What the bill did was to make it easier to get a third trimester abortion. Perhaps this will make the day of the infanticiders.
"Some states, like New York, feel an urgency to protect the rights of their citizens" And at the same time, Cuomo's team seeks to separate New Yorkers from as much as possible of their after tax income. For years, people have been leaving NY while Cuomo trumpets how great a place it is. ITs not a great place. Its just an overwhelmingly expensive place, particularly for young people who cannot get a start.
1
Hmm, taxes are higher in NYC, and population still growing.
You seem to forget his stupid property tax cap. Cuomo is what’s left of the neoliberal so-called centrists. I’ll be convinced otherwise when he signs into law universal healthcare in New York.
I respect a woman's right to choose. I also believe that if you are against abortion and want to criminalize that behavior, where are you in defending the innocent children and nuns that have been sexually abused by priests and bishops? Why are you not marching in the streets DEMANDING that these individuals be prosecuted and jailed? The bill was just passed and signed allowing extension of the statue of limitations for sexual abuse crimes in NY. It was opposed by Republicans at the insistence of the Catholic church. By all means go after women who are making the best decision they can for themselves and their families after consultation with their loved ones and doctors. But protect the perpetrators of criminal behavior over and over and over again. When will you get around to dealing with that?
5
According to the statistics referenced by Mr. Cuomo, The CDC notes there were 638, 169 abortions in 2015 from 49 reporting areas. Much is made of the fact that only 1% of these were third trimester abortions. 1% means there were over 6,000 late abortions in 2015; over 6,000 human beings killed in the womb. Mr. Cuomo calls Mr. Trump's stance on the issue an attack on women's rights. The pregnant moms need to be cherished, protected. Their unborn child needs to be cherished, protected too; not attacked. We must speak up for the unborn's right to life. There is no opposition to protecting both mom and child. Both.
2
@Rhett Segall You are not protecting both by forcing a woman to give birth against her will. Late term abortions are heartbreaking choices that sometimes need to be made by the people involved, not outsiders with no facts and only projection.
2
You simply do not know what you think you know. Those 6000 abortions do not represent one single murdered child. In no case was a viable fetus killed, except to protect the mother.
If you trust her to raise the child after you force her to give birth — at her cost and risk, not yours — why do you not trust her to decide for herself whether or not to carry the pregnancy to term?
A strong cocktail, your paternalistic moralistic certitude. If I may, I suggest diluting it with a little branch water of compassion and respect.
3
Thank you Governor Cuomo for affirming separation of church and state.
Can someone tell me what drives the desire of religious politicians to push the USA to a theocratic state? The singular ignorance of theocracy should be enough to avoid it like the plague. After removing abortion rights, next up are easy targets such as rights of homosexuals. I won't mention the more complex nuances of human sexuality as manifest by transgender individuals, but I think we know it is too complex for Christian believers to comprehend. And then, why not stone the sinners to death? Removing abortion rights is the thick edge of a looming theocratic state.
Look at Pence and his record. THEOCRACY mes amis.
Governor Cuomo thank you for leadership on this important issue.
3
I think democrats need to strategize and anticipate better. So when you pass an abortion bill, anticipate that republicans are going to lie about it, and that will catch fire on Fox. Have the defense ready, have the talking points (the truth) ready, have a plan of repeated delivery ready. Because they are ready. It's a propaganda war, and we are losing. I don't want it to be a propaganda war, but it is and we need to get in the game or we lose.
5
Thank you for eloquently articulating what many sane people feel is an issue of individual justice and empowerment. As a another Roman Catholic, we are all too familiar with the glaring hypocrisies of the RC Church. It's own misdeeds of sexual abuse, mysogeny, corruption, anti-semitism, racism, and homophobia that have led to a hopelessly dysfunctional clergy and dwindling church attendance.
The official positions of the RC Church, and positions affirmed by our Evangelical brothers and sisters, are nothing more than a throwback to instilling guilt and fear over a fundamental component of life: our human sexuality and personal decision making. A decision to have an abortion, especially when the life and health of a fetus or mother is in the balance, should be met with compassion and love, not indignation and the scarlet letter of shame. The hypocrisy of the positions of churches promulgating fear in the public square with bigger hypocrites like President Trump, is hardly pro-life. The misdeeds of our own faith tradition, rooted in celibacy, and such fallacies as the rhythm method, are hardly pro-family nor pro-life.
We should recognize that while rank and file Christians have the fundamental right to oppose abortion, the cynical fear mongering of individuals including Pres Trump, Dolan, Kavanaugh, Fr Frank Pavone, and others, is about their power and domination over others, especially women. Such cynicism is not consistent with the Gospel teachings of Jesus Christ.
4
Thank you Governor. It was most unsettling to see the Republican men standing and applauding while Trump spewed lies about abortion. I hope more speak up as you have done.
5
Sadly, many anti-abortion proponents understand that it is a religious belief that life begins at conception. It is a belief- not a fact. While they’ll try to use ‘facts’ to support this religious belief— a heart is beating, ignoring that if the mother’s heart stops, so does the fetus’s. There is only ONE life before viability, and that is the woman’s who is carrying a fetus. A fetus moves when poked! So does an an amoeba. A fetus feels pain! It doesn’t even have a developed brain stem, connecting its brain to its nerve endings before 24 weeks
Life does not begin at conception. Potential life may- and whether to move forward with that potential child is the choice every woman can and must make for herself.
4
I don't see why the government should be able to force someone to have a child and then not help raise it at all. Like taxation without representation.
That said while I'm pro abortion it is and will always be barbaric at some points. Just accept that and move on with your life.
Thank you for this Governor Cuomo.
While our country is built on religious freedom, I do believe we have at times lost our moral compass. The idea that abortion should be legal safe and rare is a good place to start. I cannot imagine the tragedy of aborting a 3rd trimester fetus because the mother will die without this procedure. One can be pro choice as a citizen but conclude that abortion is against their personal moral code.
I would like to pivot from this issue to our health care system- an area where I believe we have also lost our moral code. It is a tiered system. If you are lucky enough to have a good job or work for the government (state, local or federal) you are home free. While Obama did his best it did not go nearly far enough. Under the NY state gov health care policies available to me where I live I cannot access cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering- not a single policy will allow you to go there. Yet employees of your government Mr. Cuomo can do so. That is immoral. All citizens deserve equal access to the best care.
2
I worked for the State and I am not home free. Under legislation being considered I would be stripped of my health care coverage and consigned to Medicare for All (Sanders version; look it up, even if you don't think it affects you now). All city and state employees, current and retired, should contact their representatives in Albany now. PS in addition all y'alls taxes will go up.
This is disingenuous. The liberal states are basically throwing down a gauntlet, saying if you try to make abortion laws more conservative, we will make them more liberal. The next steps in both directions will be still more radical. Most people are somewhere in the middle, where the nation belongs.
1
What middle? Allow some abortions and not others? Good idea! Oh, wait. That’s what we do now.
As Cuomo said, this law only codifies as state law what Roe decided for the country. If Roe is overturned, as seems likely, control over abortion regulation will revert to the states. All this law does is guarantee continuity in that event.
Many states have done the opposite, you may not be aware. There are laws to ban abortion outright in several states, a trap set to spring the day Roe is history.
"Late Term Abortion" sounds much more horrible than saying, "in the case the doctor must choose between the life of the Mother and the life of the baby, they must choose the Mother's life."
3
@Ronny
"Murder" sounds much more horrible than saying, "a surgical procedure in which the constituent elements of the fetus were separated and removed from the birth canal."
1
If health is defined as “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient” as per the Supreme Court ruling then it sounds to me that late term abortions are allowed for any reason. It is so broad that essentially there is no restriction
1
I am pro-choice, it should be up to the woman and her partner whether or not to have or not have the baby period. I believe that the right really doesn't care about the unborn baby, they certainly don't care about the born baby (they don't want to feed, educate, or care for the health of the born baby). These same folks are also trying to control a woman's access to birth control. This goes further than that, they want to control whether or not a woman has a right to have sex. It is very telling to see a bunch of men on here stating their opposition to "Abusing" abortion by using it as birth control.
If we want to outlaw women having abortions then we must also hold the men who create these babies accountable as well. Not by forcing the women into marrying them, but making the men financially co-responsible for the child for it's entire chldhood, regardless of whether or not they have an active relationship with the mother. I would be willing to bet Pro-life men would be horrified at the thought and support for the law would die in the Republican senate. Men want to engage in sexual activity without consequences, women should have the same right.
142
@GG
thank you!!
7
@GG
I think you mixed up pro choice and pro life men there. Why do you think men are pro choice in the first place?
@GG
DNA testing would make finding and proving the father pretty easy. I think in the next 5-10 years you are going to see a lot more women choose to have the fathers of their children pay for child support and/or college or something.
So, it will become clearer that a choice of limited access to birth control and abortion will also limit mens access to sex, even from their wives.
Men can chose to not have sex .. or use condoms which do work pretty well but maybe not well enough to limit their financial exposure. Men tend to like sex.
Or we can move on from our Puritan and religiously extreme attitudes to be more like Europeans who use birth control openly and freely and effectively.
9
You got my vote for the highest office in the land. Separation of church and state is the number one issue on my top five resons I’ll support any candidate for any office. The other four are women’s right to choose, protecting the environment, overturning unlimited money in politics, and regulating gerrymandering. There are many more but these top issues supersede all others for the protection of our nation and world.
What are your top five? And do you vote accordingly?
3
According to a 2013 report from the Guttmacher Institute, which is pro-choice, most late-term abortions are not related to fetal viability or threats to the mother's life. The report said the reasons are similar to the reasons for earlier abortions--mostly socioeconomic. This is the case because a handful of doctors exploit the vagueness in Doe v. Bolton's language and will perform late abortions for almost any reason. The Governor should be open about this.
Many doctors have tesified that intentionally killing the fetus in utero is never required to save the mother's life--rather, delivery can be induced or C-section performed and the child given medical care, or hospice care in terminal cases.
1
@Tom Stringham Delivery or c-section are not always the safe option for the woman.
1
@Tom Stringham
"According to a 2013 report from the Guttmacher Institute, which is pro-choice, most late-term abortions are not related to fetal viability or threats to the mother's life. "
Citation needed. Please also define "late term," because I expect that you're referring to abortions past 20 weeks, not past 24 weeks.
"Many doctors have tesified that intentionally killing the fetus in utero is never required to save the mother's life--rather, delivery can be induced or C-section performed and the child given medical care, or hospice care in terminal cases."
Many pro-life doctors. Doctors who have not examined women who need late term abortions. Doctors who haven't examined me or my pregnancy.
It's charming that you, Tom, a man, have no trouble telling a woman she must endure labor to deliver a baby who will die. That's cruel. I understand that you don't believe women are people, but I assure you, it is extremely cruel.
You also have no right to insist that I undergo a medically unnecessary major abdominal surgery to deliver a baby that will die.
3
@C's Daughter
Here's the link to the report: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013
It's a survey of abortions after 20 weeks, yes. And I wasn't saying that abortions in emergency situations shouldn't be allowed, but rather that they are not medically necessary.
My main point, which you didn't respond to, was that Doe v. Bolton, combined with vaguely written laws, allows a very small minority of doctors to perform late term abortions for virtually any reason.
1
“We cannot have true freedom of religion without separation of church and state.” This is the most important line in the piece. As the far right mobilizes its minions to vote on this one issue only, they have in mind more than just the re-subjectification of women. They want nothing less than the elimination of the freedom of religion clause and an eventual medieval style Christian kingdom. Getting together their one-issue voters, voters who do not care to take the trouble to learn about the damage being done by “their guys” to the economy, clean air and water, health care, etc., is the first step.
3
@Carmine "Christian kingdom"? Afraid of what's coming? Read the Holy Bible and the prophecy's of what happens to all who murder. Christ's angelic host gathers all of the tares and cast them into hell. In Genesis we are told that the "Life is in the Blood". Since women choose to take the life of a baby which has a blood type different than the mother's it is obvious that she is taking the life of another. Separation is coming. The evil are going to be removed from this planet and cast into hell. Nothing man can do to change that.
@Carmine thank you!
"Trump’s Assault on Abortion Rights Must Be Rejected"
I agree completely.
But the Democrats' assault on our 2nd Amendment rights must also be rejected. And their assault on the rights of our states to be free of unconstitutional federal interference in their education systems. And their assault, by over-taxation and over-regulation, on the economic freedoms of Americans.
The Democrats are hardly in a position to "reject" an "assault" on a "right" that doesn't, Constitutionally, even exist when they're collectively guilty of a vast number of assaults on the Constitution and on Constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans.
2
@Henry Miller You might want to reexamine the 9th Amendment, which most definitely protects the right of a patient to make medical decisions in private consultation with a physician.
The 14th Amendment extended that protection to the States, which you clearly decline to acknowledge, even tho the Supreme Court has clarified that point.
@Henry Miller what is this assault on the 2nd amendment you are referring to? I think you are a victim of misinformation. No one is trying to outlaw guns, not even the far left. common sense gun laws that protect all of us is all we want!
1
What does overregulation look like? Which particular regulation are you personally knowledgeable about that needs rescinding? Or, are you just swallowing a line from the right?
I’ll tell you what underregulation looks like. It looks like death and disease
It looks like Flint, Michigan. It looks like a river of toxic gunk from fracking and mining. It looks like Teflon chemicals leached into the ground water in West Virginia. It looks like cancer and emphysema in the northeast, downwind from coal plants and mercury emissions in the Midwest. It looks like carbon emissions that could be eliminated with more efficient cars and more windmills.
It looks like 13 pages of fine print when you buy a phone or get a credit card. It looks like a diploma, with debt to match, for a worthless degree. It looks like bank fees for services you never signed up for. It looks like a foreclosure that could have been avoided through honest dealing.
Every CEO declares proudly his — almost always his — only obligation is to the shareholders. None to the environment, customers, or employees. Who represents them, if not the regulators?
I appreciate Gov. Cuomo’s effort to clarify the law, but why continue the division on this issue? When I was possibly misinformed about the rules on late-term abortions and shuddered at the thought of a fully formed baby being dismembered, I was not a religious zealot willing to lie to force my beliefs on someone. I was an emotional, reasonable person with a conscience. Perhaps some political hacks intentionally distorted the law, an action we can all agree is wrong. Just as we all agree, religious or not, that babies need protection and care.
4
Asking why to continue division on the issue is like asking why argue about taxes or anything else. Yes, everyone agrees on motherhood, apple pie, and protecting children. In the abstract.
The abstract is made concrete in law, and application of law on an actual woman with a particular pregnancy. This law leaves that protection very much to the two who know that particular situation best: the woman and her doctor. Why do you trust them less than the courts?
Mr. Cuomo is an expert qt weasel words. The bill does not permit the death of a 32 week preterm infant for any reason. But a mother's mental anguish and mental health is clearly a permitted reason. By the way does Mr. Cuomo know that you have to kill the 32 week pre term infant in utero before delivering it for the abortion? Yes kill it.
Are NYT readers in favor of sex selection abortions? Almost always females that get killed. Just asking.
7
@Bill "Weasel words" like "preterm infant" instead of fetus? Gender specific abortion tends to happen in countries where women have few rights. Instead of removing even more, give them back. People are not aborting late term on a whim.
1
@Bill
There is no such thing as a "32 week pre term infant in utero"
You don't have any business accusing anyone of using "weasel words" when you use a non-sensical word salad like that.
4
@Bill
I see that you have replied numerous times referring to “32 week pre term infants”. I’m not sure what your fascination is with 32 weeks, but if a fetus is healthy, but the mother’s life is endangered (regardless of the reason for endangerment), it is far more likely that labor would be induced and the result would either be a stillbirth, or a premature infant. I suppose an exception to induction would be if the woman was unable to endure labor and delivery. I’m sorry that you believe that there are women lined up to have fetal reductions at 32 weeks, but it just isn’t so. Having performed this procedure in other species, it takes a tremendous toll on the provider and the patient and is never undertaken lightly. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence and your vehement replies sound more like the response to something you heard, not the response to actuality.
Also, with regard to sex selection, I suppose there are a few pockets of immigrants in the US where cultural differences might be responsible for the termination of female fetuses, but even I don’t think sex selection is a legitimate excuse for an abortion. This practice has been reported to be common elsewhere, but you haven’t given any statistical basis, only your somewhat hysterical and apparently knee-jerk reaction.
1
Reading this piece is just like chewing on a stale rice cake.
Although Governor Cuomo is correct about the separation of church and state, I HAVE ALWAYS FELT THAT NO MAN SHOULD EVER MAKE ANY DECISION ABOUT A WOMAN'S BODY, LET ALONE DISCUSS IT!
AND WHERE IS THE DIALOGUE REGARDING NEW LEGISLATION REQUIRING OUR SUPREME COURT BEING COMPRISED OF FIFTY PERCENT WOMEN?
If Andrew Cuomo sincerely cared about women's rights then he would abolish the Taylor Law ( Nelson Rockefellar's creation) which bans striking by NYS public teachers and professors, a female dominated profession. Instead he keeps women SILENCED about the poverty they live in and the lack of job security.
Now what do I drink to wash down this stale rice cake Governor Andrew Cuomo keeps shoving down our throats?
1
This column could serve as a template for Supreme Court opinion, it is absolutely authoritative on New York law; and it issues from a man's man who is a pro-feminist: philosophically, politically, and personally. Powerful. It is good if the goal posts have moved to post-birth personhood. Personhood begins to begin at birth the first instant the fetal eyes open to light, sending signals for the brain to begin to route, organize, and decode; sees and feels a hand, sets up hand-eye co-ordination; exercises willful movement; starts to fill memory; and begins to develop the prerequisites for generating a conscious self - a human personhood. Only happens after release from the constraint, darkness, and white noise of the womb. Birth. Eugenics might come from the force of governments, the influence of religions, or the interference of busybodies - never from the free choice of each different individual female. The Governor's advocacy and information is correct and proper, practical and realistic, wise and moral.
7
@JVM
With regards to personhood. Rove v Wade defines life as "viabilty", the baby can survive outside the womb even with help from technology.
Would premature births (some born at 21 weeks) be considered protected life?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterm_birth
@D: In my thinking - yes. Once out of the womb and exposed to the full sensory input and free motion the beginning of mind formation is triggered. Fetal surgery could even start the engine.
1
@JVM
Do the key to defining life and affording protection of the state is not to let the fetus see the light of day? Using this logic, a full term baby at 39-42 weeks would be a candidate for abortion as personhood has not been achieved.
Personhood is based on the assumption that life does not begin until one is out of the womb and that sensory perceptions inside the womb are irrelevant.
I say and say again that the pro-choice position on abortion protects a woman's right to have a baby because if the state can force a woman to carry a fetus to term, it can for her NOT to carry it to term.
This is a decision that ought to be left to a woman, her family, her medical professionals, and her God.
All this hand wringing about late term abortions is a slight of hand to pass laws to take away a woman's power over her own body. Most late term abortions happen in tragic circumstances where the woman's life is at risk and or the baby has serious medical problems that will cause it to have a brief and painful life. It is a terribly painful time for a woman and her family. The last thing they need at this moment is a law to complicate things even more.
39
"Most late term abortions happen in tragic circumstances" you say with authority. How about the ones that aren't in that category? Is that OK? Before you say yes go check out what a 32 week pre term infant looks like. You have to kill that to abort it.
2
@Bill
“This is a decision that ought to be left to a woman, her family, her medical professionals, and her God.”
Not to you, your priest or your government... period.
5
@Bill
You keep using that assembly of words, "32 week pre term infant," but that's not a real thing.
Please google basic words related to pregnancy and prenatal development so that you can accurately participate in discussion on this topic.
While you're at it, please find me some examples of healthy 32 week fetuses that are "aborted" when the woman is healthy. Thanks in advance!!
4
Governor Cuomo, thank you for this letter. In an era of edited sound bites or Twitter-friendly video clips, it is nice to have a more complete iteration of the spirit of the Act in your eyes and your mindset in supporting it. Please do this more regularly in the NYT--and other governors statesmen, please take note!
12
The fight over Abortion is at the core of America.
Either we are a county that believes that some things can only be defined by one's world, or religious, views or we are a country that dictates how things are defined.
When life begins is one of those things that has to be defined.
Either we leave the definition up to the individual or we leave it to the state.
Some people think life begins at conception want the state to mandate their world view or religion.
Some people that think that life starts when the umbilical cord it cut.
There is no way in the universe to ever reconcile those two world views. So the question then becomes, which one becomes the rule of law.
I for one think that such not definable things in this life must be left to the choice of the individual. Why? Because the alternative is the antithesis of those who believe in the sanctity of life.
If the people who think that life starts at conception keep pushing such a view it is inevitable that "the others" will push back. Such things lead to violence and can in time fester to all out civil war.
The people who think that life begins later and that people should have access to abortions when they want also risk the same kind of push back that leads to violence. They need to make sure that "choice" is not funded by tax payer dollars from people with the opposing view.
This core issue must be brought to an accommodation or it will fester and cause even larger damage to the body politic.
1
“While governments may very well enact laws that ARE consistent with religious teaching, governments do not pass laws TO BE consistent with what any particular religion dictates”
Quote for the ages. Thanks, Governor! And thanks for the Reproductive Health Act.
10
@Cormac How many religions preach killing 32 week pre term infants??
2
According to reports by the Guttmacher Institute, founded by Planned Parenthood, there are more late term abortions each year than gun homicides. Does that make it rare? Cuomo and others want abortion to be the only right which can’t be restricted and get hysterical over common sense restrictions present in most of the world. Reasonable Americans see that abolishing abortion is extreme, and they oppose it. They also see allowing late term abortion virtually on demand, as NY ‘s law does, despite governor’s smoke and mirrors, as extreme. Planned Parenthood and Governor Cuomo are just like the NRA, arguing that any restrictions will lead to banning abortion (or guns). Both are extreme positions which polls show Americans reject. There are, indeed, folks who want to ban abortion or guns, but reasonable people see that all rights can be regulated, and should be. It need not be a slippery slope demanding brutality to preserve the right to choose.
7
@Kevin Johnson
No, the Guttmacher Institute does not say that. This is only true if you redefine "late term abortion" to "abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy." Most of them occur between weeks 20 and 24, when Roe protects the unrestricted right to abortion. Anti choice activists continually blur the definition of late term to make the procedure appear far more common than it is.
23
@Kevin Johnson - The Guttmacher Institute actually reports that: "slightly more than 1% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later." Only 10% are performed after 14 weeks and most women in this group would have had the abortion earlier if they had been allowed to do so. None of us like or want abortion. In a perfect world there would be no abortions, but this is not that perfect world. The Supreme Court in Roe did an amazing thing in setting reasonable restrictions and permissions on abortion. "Anti-abortion" is really "pro-birth," "anti-choice," and gives men the right to decide for women about their bodies and their lives.
8
@Dennis Maher It's ok to kill the 1% over 24 weeks?
1
Some anti-choice folks are thoughtful and sincere.
Many like Donald believe life begings at conception and ends at birth. The life of the unborn is precious and should be protected but no support for early child education or daycare, food programs for hungry kids or food stamps for those families, many with kids, in need.
Most if not all of Donald and his shrinking bases’ priorities are slogans. Not well thought out, consistent, sincerely held core principles.
3
I am pro choice and fiercely for women’s rights. I could not understand how any woman would not support the Equal Rights Amendment. It just boggles my mind.
I do not support supporting abortion as birth control. I am for reasonable cautions on abortion, including counseling and a waiting period. A woman will hopefully not find herself in the position where abortion is the best option. As an adoptive father I have a tough time fathoming giving up a baby. Either decision affects everyone around her, family, friends, etc. These are lonely and terrifying decisions with lasting consequences.
But I am a realist. Abortion will not disappear even if outlawed. It will just go underground to those who can afford it and endanger the lives of those who cannot.
As such, I agree with Governor Cuomo and others supporting Roe. Yes, there are many who oppose abortion for many reasons. I respect their right to disagree and also understand that religion plays a huge part in their opposition. Why can’t they respect a women’s right to an informed and painful decision, especially if their life is in danger or the fetus not viable? What person feels they are so righteous to decide for them?
22
@ArtM Is it a woman's right to terminate a perfectly health 32 week pre term infant? If so we are really headed down as a society.
1
@ArtM
In countries with strict anti-abortion laws it is not unheard of for a woman to be imprisoned for having a miscarriage. Law enforcement officers should not be equal assessors of a woman's gynecological needs. Neither should "pastors" with dubious bible study credentials such as short courses in mini-strip malls on the weekend have any say in women's medical decisions.
President Trump should be challenged for perpetuating these lies about late term abortions.
4
Why counseling and a waiting period? So women need to spend more money on travel and take more time off of work? I am assuming you are a man who thinks women don’t know what to do with our bodies. You know plenty of women who have made this decision, even women who call themselves pro life, they just don’t talk about it with you.
3
My definition of pro-choice: Sex Education and access to free or inexpensive birth control. I’m not opposed to ending a pregnancy in the first few weeks - especially in situations of abuse and violence. But it’s heart wrenching to be talking about late and full term babies. How could we have gotten here?
8
@Born In The Bronx because, tragically, some fetuses are not viable outside the womb. And some have dramatic deformities that will result in zero quality of life. Some are, tragically, threatening to the body in which they exist. Every week that the pregnancy proceeds carries additional risk to the woman. Should she carry a non viable pregnancy for 40 weeks and risk her reproductive and mental health?
71
@Born In The Bronx
Because almost all of those babies, if still alive, will live short and very painful lives if they are born, and many have no chance of more than a few days.
Because many of these babies have died in the womb.
And, so overlooked and so important- which is a travesty - Because in many cases, the mother's life and health is at risk if the pregnancy is carried to term. Often leaving behind motherless children as well as devastated spouses and families.
The part of the pro-life movement that is against this law is willing to let women die in childbirth for religious and political beliefs, and political power. This is not morality in my book. It is shameless and cruel.
32
@Born In The Bronx
What is so complex about the concept that women only have abortions in the third trimester (please cite one example of a "full term baby" being aborted) because of threats to their health or severe fetal defects?
Stop moaning and sobbing about some "heart wrenching" tragedy that isn't happening.
20
Time to face facts: There are bigger battles looming than just overturning Roe. The far right's true intent is to establish a constitutional right to life, outlawing abortion throughout the US. Barring the highly unlikely possibility of amending the constitution itself, anti-choice forces will turn to the Supreme Court to declare it so. Do not put it past this court, particularly with a third Trump appointee, to do so.
11
@Chris How do you know what the true intent of the right is, or whether there is anything like "the right" which includes more than a minority of Americans?
All this talk about "the right" from you, and talk about "socialism" from the other side are tricks to divide Americans.
A move to decrease the sharp difference between rich and poor is not socialism. And a move to protect innocent late term fetuses is not a right wing agenda - indeed late term fetuses are protected in France, Germany and Italy. Only not in New York.
3
Again, for the umpteenth time, we're talking about pregnancies that threaten a woman's life or health or when the fetus is not viable. These procedures are allowed in Europe. Calling the fetus 'innocent' doesn't mean much when the mother will die if the pregnancy continues or when it has developed without a brain, or lungs.
7
@Ludwig
Did you not read the article? The NYS law simply enacts into the state code what is already the Federal legal standard. Late term fetuses are given state protection, just not to the exclusion of the mother’s health and survival.
It is interesting that you bring up European approaches to the issue. Let us consider France: It is indeed true that in France the line where a woman has absolute autonomy is drawn the end of the first trimester there, rather than the second as it is in U.S. Federal law (and now by NYS). It is also true that this compromise comes with a social contract that includes:
-Free and easily accessible birth control.
-Comprehensive sex education in schools (and additional public education campaigns).
-Free abortions up to that point.
-Pre-natal care that is not only free, but in fact pays you in many cases.
-Free hospital and medical costs for the birth and any health complications or impacts.
-Generous paid maternity leave—and the ability to return to your old job in many cases.
-Generous public subsidy for families with children, including special subsidies for new barns.
-Free health care for the child right up to adulthood.
-Free or heavily subsidized education (including college) for the child.
(When I say “free,” I obviously mean paid for by tax payers and provided free.)
I have never heard any opponent of Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. propose even part of such a scheme.
6
Thank you Governor Cuomo for your succinct explanation to this transplanted New Yorker who was stunned to hear POTUS say New York allows "abortions minutes before birth."
I live in a Trump tribal territory and facts have become as necessary to me as a good nights sleep, energizing nutrition, yoga, and laughter from the belly [thank you Stephen Colbert].
29
L
The question that is at the center of the debate is whether the human being before birth is a person. If so that life should be protected regardless of how dependent they are on another human to survive. If not then what exactly defines a person and who gets to set the criteria? The governor of New York? New York time readers? A committee of scientists?
7
@phil I believe "committee of scientists" is probably the closest, as regards medical procedures.Your criterion is philosophical, not medical.
@phil The question you should be asking is about women's autonomy. Are women in charge of what happens to their own bodies? Are women mere vessels or are they allowed to decide when they should put their bodies through the potentially deadly decision to have children? If the fetuses are going to be born severely deformed do their mothers have to allow those children to endure the torture of excruciating medical care and early death? Are women allowed to end a pregnancy that endangers their own survival? Who has greater value - a person who is already alive or something that might one day be alive?
16
@phil
The question at the center of this debate is whether women are human beings and therefore free and equal citizens or are bound servants of the state. If the state can dictate to women on matters so deeply enmeshed in their individual self and autonomy, then liberty, inalienable rights and all the rest is a sham. And if it is a sham for such a large percentage of the population (indeed, the 52% majority), then democracy itself is a fraud.
So who is to decide what an individual woman does on a question so basic to her humanity and identity? Obviously, she does. And you can judge, if you feel righteous and without empathy, but you cannot punish.
4
I hope that the GOP gets their wish and Roe is overturned. It will be the end of their party. How many people support a woman's right to choose but still vote republican because they like hardline immigration rhetoric or promises to the "working class"? How many people voted for trump figuring he would never get elected or because they "just couldn't vote for Hilary"? How many people who are pro choice don't vote at all? Overturning Roe would be a huge mobilizer for the pro choice majority of Americans and have the added benefit of forcing so called "evangelicals" to actually look at the morality of their candidates when their favorite bugaboo is gone. So go ahead, stacked Supreme Court and GOP, make my day.
6
@MJ If Roe is overturned, few states will move to ban abortion. Most will retain some version of abortion rights. And many states will follow New York's example.
So we will have a mixed picture. Don't pretend that a "nightmare for women" is coming or even that the majority of Americans want it.
Scaring people has become our new political game. But that game has a cost in terms of dividing Americans as different Americans are scared by different boogies.
2
@MJ
Smart GOP strategists hope Roe is never overturned because they like it as a perpetual wedge issue. And because they're afraid of waking up the majority who are content to sleep on their rights as long as they don't feel personally threatened.
6
@Ludwig
Don't fool yourself. The nightmare for many women is already here. Unless you have money. And sometimes, not even if you have money.
3
I keep hearing all of these people talk about women and late-term abortions. Do you know whose voice I don't hear? Women who have had them.
I have had two friends receive devastating news at their 2nd trimester ultrasounds. These two friends had to make heart-wrenching decisions as to go through with a pregnancy that would end in stillborn or, worse, jeopardize their own lives and end in an emergency procedure if the fetus didn't survive long enough to be stillborn. A judge had to be involved both times.
I understand why these women don't want to go public. Instead of sympathy they are shamed. However, it's time that their stories were told.
225
@Ashley
These stories are in fact retold, a lot. Every time the issue arises. But people with garbage religious agendas continually pretend they've never come across any of the sagas and heartbreaks and pain that everyone else knows is real.
22
@Ashley That's fine. But we are talking about Cuomo and his buddies in the legislature celebrating and high-fiving a a law that allows a woman to have an abortion up to 24 weeks (and of course that means 25 weeks) for any reason. Meanwhile, 25-week fetuses born prematurely often survive out of the womb, and thrive.
1
@Erik
The law has always been 24 weeks. Survival at this stage is limited and often accompanied by lifelong health challenges. But that isn’t really the point, is it? Firstly, most abortions occur far earlier than 24 weeks and would occur even earlier without the restrictions being enacted all over the country. Secondly, survival of a very fragile fetus is celebrated by everyone when it follows a medical emergency delivery to a woman who has chosen to become a parent but that isn’t the issue--which is something anti-choice people cannot seem to grasp.
14
"Third-trimester procedures are extremely rare, making up only about 1 percent of all abortions. The option is available for exactly the reason stated in Roe and successor cases: to protect the life or health of the woman."
This law has been widely and deliberately misinterpreted to inflame the passions of the religious right. As the Governor states, it's intended to codify existing laws, while clarifying the legality of those those rare cases when late cycle abortions can to be allowed.
Like the Governor, I'm Catholic and would never personally violate the tenets of my faith. But I also reside in a secular republic whose founding fathers were obsessed with keeping religion out of the public square and our laws.
I believe the repeal of Roe would usher in a whole host of other religious (eg, Christian) laws designed to remove secularism from the public square.
On abortion, we are really fighting about the nature of our constitutional republic. Bend it once to the desires of religious leaders on Roe, and watch a Pandora's box of other issues arise that would limit religious freedom while expanding the intrusion of said religion into public life.
82
At least a third, and perhaps half, of all pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage; do the anti-choice people hold their chosen God culpable? No: they simply shrug and say, 'it was meant to be.' Religion in the USA is still a private matter except when it comes to ones body and we end up with laws based on religious notions dictating what a woman (and her doctor) may or may not do with her body.
66
@Susan. Are you suggesting that dieing if natural causes has the same moral weight as having your life deliberately taken?
The question that is at the center of the debate is whether the human being before birth is a person. If so that life should be protected regardless of how dependent they are on another human to survive. If not then what exactly defines a person and who gets to set the criteria? The governor of New York? You?
3
@phil
Yes, actually.
In the absence of actual scientific evidence of exactly when consciousness begins in that fetus, I do. As do you. As do all of us.
What it comes down to is a personal choice. If you personally don't want to have an abortion, you don't have to have one. No one is FORCING people to have abortions (at least not in the United States yet).
But the ability to have one in such extraordinary circumstances should not be infringed.
31
@phil the fetus does not just depend on the woman’s body, it threatens it. Have you looked up maternal mortality statistics in this country lately? We do not value women’s lives and we are seeing the fruits. It starts with valuing the fetus above them and continues at birth when the baby is cared for and the woman ignored. Even if the fetus is considered a person, it is a unique sort of person whose life depends on and threatens another person. That person should have the choice of whether to carry that burden.
25
We need to get the last state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and officially add the amendment to the US Constitution. ONLY then will women's reproductive rights cease to be a political football for every election season!
Roe v Wade established women's constitutional protection under the 14th amendment right to due process but it is SCOTUS case law and as such it is under constant bombardment and challenge from the dark forces of the right. Half of America should not be constantly looking over our shoulders for the next assault on our reproductive choices. We need to enshrine a woman's right to make her own choices in the official law of the land. Only then will we be able to tackle the biggest problems of our society, our nation and our world.
72
@Geraldine "Roe v Wade established women's constitutional protection under the 14th amendment right to due process"
You know what the greatest irony is? The Due Process clause ensures that "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".
No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law. And that due process is used as a justification to end lives.
2
The children whose lives are being terminated by your laws, Mr. Cuomo, would like to have the opportunity to exercise their freedom of religion, would like to be able to read a newspaper, to assemble in gatherings that may be secular or religious, would like to have the right to vote and to speak. These children, whose lives are being terminated by your abortion law, would like to enter into a pluralistic society. They too are or will be citizens, whose rights ought to be defended. This op-ed is specious and disingenuous; no one has the right to define another human being out of existence by using words to conceal the underlying reality. Children in the womb are human beings; and if left unmolested, will come into this world looking to exercise their rights, which Mr. Cuomo recites without understanding.
21
The way to reduce abortion is to have comprehensive sex education, free women’s healthcare, easy access to birth control, and free nutritional and health assistance to infants. Doing less than this makes one pro-birth, not pro-life.
259
@Tom Wolpert
Those “lives” are not being terminated by any law but by the decision of the mother based on her beliefs and her intimate knowledge of the circumstances. The law mearly recognizes that people have different opinions about the issue.
Whether a fetus is a person is an issue that will probably never be resolved, as it depends on your definition of what makes us human - biology, viability, the ability to think, etc. If you believe a fetus is a fully formed human life with rights that supersede those of the mother, then you may act accordingly in your own life. The law is there to keep you from imposing your beliefs on others.
33
@RickK Laws are intended to protect the most vulnerable. a 32 week pre term infant can't fight back against the hypodermic needle aimed at its heart to snuff out its life.
3
I am prochoice. I believe women have a right to control their own bodies.
But I have a tough time with the idea that an abortion at 24 weeks and 12 weeks are the same. According to some stats from Wikipedia 50-70% of babies born at 24-25 weeks survive.
I'm going to continue to be prochoice. But when a fetus has that good a chance of survival...
27
@Talbot Be confident that the horror stories are not happening. No doctor terminates a healthy late term pregnancy- it's malpractice and its unethical. They'd end their career and be disciplined. Thats' why there are an average of 4 and 7 late term abortions performed in this nation every year. It's extremely uncommon. A healthy pregnancy would be supported to term as "first do no harm" applies to both patients.
Google images of neural tube defects and anencephaly to see images of these late term fetuses. They simply do not have the organs required for life. There is no doubt and many do not have the anatomy to be born normally.
132
@Geraldine My concern is that 24 weeks is not considered late term. It's the end of the period for routine abortions according to NY state law. And I have trouble with the idea that a fetus with 50-70% viability would be considered in the period for routine abortion.
5
@Talbot
I don’t know the statistics of survival for premature infants at 24 weeks, but these are babies that require long stays in NICU and are often profoundly disabled due to their prematurity. They cannot breathe on their own and must be ventilated. They must be incubated. I don’t necessarily agree that every premature infant less than 28 to 30 weeks is “viable”. Advances in healthcare and increased survival at 24 weeks reflect an inability to accept that not every fetus is going to survive. Not to put a price tag on these babies, but NICU costs are in the millions, often covered by the state when mothers are un- or underinsured, not to mention costs associated with disabilities relating to cerebral palsy and other profound neurological impairments, also costs borne by government.
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I don’t always agree with Governor Cuomo but on this issue, he’s spot on. If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one. Otherwise, the government should stay out of this very difficult and personal issue.
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@Steven Ling We as a society have a obligation to protect the life of a perfectly healthy 32 week pre term infant.
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@Steven Ling
If you don't like babies, don't get pregnant.
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@Bill
And your point is....?
The law says 24 weeks. Abortions done after that are for very serious reasons and the fetus is usually dead or so compromised that it soon will be.
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Abortion is a difficult topic for many. I welcome the governor's contribution to this discussion: surely it's long past time to think of it as a debate? Among the really toxic, murderous aspects of some religions is the notion that the doctrine of one group may be imposed on others. Take that to its logical conclusion and we have the murder of doctors, the appointment of lawyers for fetuses, and the imprisonment of pregnant women because they abuse drugs and/or alcohol. If Vatican Loyalists and anti-choice people of any religion cannot convince the public of their positions, surely it's time to rethink those positions relative to the rights of society?
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@Des Johnson
The reason unnecessary abortions are protected is not because "Vatican Loyalists and anti-choice people of any religion cannot convince the public of their positions". It's because the Supreme Court removed abortion law from democratic control. The only way to see whether the public is convinced or not is to let them vote on the issue. And by the way, people can think for themselves without politicians telling them what to do.
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@Charlesbalpha: "...let them vote..."
Vote on what my morality should be? There are many areas of human behavior broadly codified in law across history and geography. Abortion is not one of them. New rights are added to our list of ethical matters from time to time, but the right to coerce belief and religious behavior is not one of them. If some people "think" they have a right to coerce me into being a Vatican Loyalist, come locked and loaded.
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@Charlesbalpha So, what other issues would you like a vote on? How about how many children a man can father before he gets a forced vasectomy? Or maybe whether you have to be married to have sex? Or perhaps who gets to vote? Public opinion changes over time, is highly malleable and all too easily inflamed. And should a simple majority decide the question. To paraphrase an old axiom: Watch what you vote for, you may get it.
8
This is fundamentally a civil rights issue. Religion should not dictate social policy. As the Governor correctly states, the GOP continues to mischaracterize the law as passed and the issue in general for political gain.
Much like "illegal immigration", the latest incarnation of the GOP understands that "abortion" can be used as a wedge issue to encourage people to vote against their interests. At one time, the GOP embraced sensible approaches to both issues that balanced societal interests with the right of individuals. The GOP has abandoned all pretenses and now is only interested in retaining power for its shrinking base of old white men.
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@Matt
As usual, the abortion lobbyists act as if people cannot think for themselves but are victims of the "GOP" (mentioned 4 times in the comment). The only reason this supposed "wedge issue" works is that millions of Americans oppose abortion.
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@Matt This isn't a religious issue. Is it religion that compels one to try and save the life of an innocent, vulnerbable being?
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@Bryan
It is religion that blinds its followers to the science and to the rights of the woman.
6
Governor Cuomo is correct is stating that the majority of Americans support Roe v Wade, and support a woman’s right to abortion BEFORE viability. However, most Americans do not support late term abortions, particularly, where as in NY’s recently enacted law, the threshold is simply the mother’s health is at risk. Late term abortion should be reserved for the rare circumstances where the mother’s life is threatened. Democrats will make a mistake politically, if they persist in pushing late term abortion as an almost absolute right of the mother. The ethics and morality is much more nuanced, and most people understand that.
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@Kathy "threshold is simply the mother’s health is at risk. Late term abortion should be reserved for the rare circumstances where the mother’s life is threatened." "Simply?" "Simply??" At what point, pray tell, does a risk to the mother's health become life threatening? And who should decide when that threshold has been reached? And, since in some cases a risk suddenly becomes life threatening, how quickly could they decide? These painful decisions must be left to the patient, her physician and, if SHE so chooses, her God.
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@Kathy
Who is better prepared to decide if the Mother's life or health is threatened than her and her Doctor? The law makes this decision one that the Mother and her Doctor make. You are being disingenuous to suggest the "life threatened" standard is simple to apply nor do you state who instead should make that decision. Also, using the phrase "later term abortion" is another dog whistle. It avoids the work of understanding each case and trivializes the difficult decision women make under those circumstances.
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@sleepdoc
You are quite ill informed about medicine. A 32 week pre term infant is not a threat to a woman's life and if it were it can be aborted in any state. Problem is NYS has decided just about anything is health like anxiety or depression.
1
Governor Cuomo speaks of religion, yet ignores science. Fetuses are inarguably human life, and he is supportive (and stridently so) of ensuring that life can be ended for a variety of reasons: some arguably good, some far from. Cloaking the abortion debate as one of religion vs. non sectarian policy is disingenuous, and as anti-science as Republicans' climate change views.
19
The problem is that we do not have an agreed definition on what human life is. It is not obvious that a fetus that cannot live outside of the womb on its own counts as a person with full legal rights. You simply seek to draw a bright line where you arbitrarily believe it belongs. The definition we need has to be supplied by community consensus and not by the Bible or as biology textbook (that may itself have its own biases).
5
@LawDog Both the anti-abortion movement and climate change deniers cherry pick and distort medical and climate science to justify their positions, using a handful of scientific "experts" to bolster their arguments. Of course "fetuses are inarguably human life" but so are mothers, who must have the absolute right to determine what happens to their own bodies, in consultation with their physicians and THEIR, not YOUR, God. If you don't like abortions, don't have one.
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@Martin Kobren
How does 32 week pre term infant sound. They are born quite regularly and do just fine.
It's refreshing to hear such an eloquent reaffirmation of the basic precepts of our constitutional rights. Pluralism is the foundation of our strength as a community.
(By the way, as a father myself I think it's great you named that bridge after your dad!)
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@jim
Actually, with our guv’s selfless prior offer to rebrand himself Amazon Cuomo to bring HQ2 to our shores – time may be nigh to respectfully consider changing dad’s name to Hudson Cuomo...
With that, we could have all of:
> The Upper, Mid, and Lower Hudson Cuomo bridges
> Castleton-on-Hudson Cuomo Bridge
> By simply re-chartering the town of Catskill as Cuomo – the Rip Van Winkle Bridge could become the Hudson/Cuomo Bridge
With nary an iota of over-the-top naming nepotism in sight...
Now if he could only come up with a scheme to make the tolls deductible for federal income taxes...
1
Thank you, Governor, for pointing out that one's religion cannot interfere with civil society. Long live separation of church and state.
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@Daphne philipson
What would you call an atheist who is opposed to abortion? Do nonreligious people not have the right to preserve and protect life?
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@Daphne philipson-Agreed but you don't need religion to tell you that late term abortions should only be legal if the life of the women is in dire jeopardy and not for any other reason which the governor has done with his "over kill" legislation recently passed opening up NY State law to infanticide.
It gives great ammo to the right wingers.
2
@Bryan I would call them uninformed. Every pregnancy is a risk to a woman's health and life. Does that not matter? How about we leave the call to the ones with all the information?
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