The pro-death forces in the state of New York are running scared these days. They’re deathly afraid that the current Supreme Court in Washington will overturn Roe v. Wade. So as a countermeasure, they recently introduced a bill into the state senate that will basically make abortion legal in New York until the moment a child is born. This bill goes far beyond the 1973 Supreme Court decision, and allows abortions even when the court has said states may regulate them.
This means that in the near future a woman will be able to go into a New York hospital on a Monday afternoon, be scheduled for a C-section the following morning, and then decide Monday night (or even Tuesday morning!) that she doesn’t want the baby, but rather wants an abortion — and the hospital will be required by law to honor her request.
If that doesn’t qualify as infanticide, then nothing does.
This barbaric and diabolical bill will also allow non-doctors to perform abortions and eliminate legal protection for the conscience rights of medical personnel who oppose the practice. Those who perform illegal abortions in the state will no longer be prosecuted, and abortionists will no longer be legally required to try to save babies born in botched procedures. As Cardinal Dolan of New York put it, “A baby who survives the scalpel, saline, or suction, and is still alive, can be left to die without any care.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo, who claims to be Catholic, signed the bill into law on January 23. He should be ashamed of himself.
We need to be aware of the fact that anti-life activists like those in New York are currently at work here in our own state. Their goal is the same: to legalize the killing of babies in a way that shields it from any future repeal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court.
As American citizens who believe in the right to life, we must hold our elected officials accountable on this issue, so that we will avoid repeating here in Rhode Island the tragedy that just occurred in New York.
