Thursday, January 17, 2019

Roe v Wade Anniversary Event and RHA!

Hey all, sorry it's been a while since we've had an update. Things, as you can imagine, have been a little nuts around here.

This Tuesday, Jan 22, is the anniversary of the passage of Roe v Wade, making access to safe, legal
abortion the law of the land. With the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court, we have been worried about the future of Roe v Wade. Therefore, we decided to have our annual Roe v Wade event on the actual anniversary this year.

The event begins at 5:30PM on 1/22/19 at the Renaissance Hotel in Albany. Tickets include beer, wine and soda, and hot and cold hors d'oeuvres. We will be honoring Eleanor's Legacy and the NYS Bipartisan Pro-Choice Legislative Caucus, and our Keynote speaker for the evening will be NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.  We would love for you to join us, and you can purchase your ticket here.

The other amazing thing going on that day, is the long-awaited passage (we hope) of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA).  If you're not sure what that is, here are some cliff's notes.

  • NYS legalized abortion three years before Roe v Wade, and is out of date. RHA will make it consistent with federal law.
  • One of the ways it is inconsistent with federal law, is that it is listed in the NYS penal code, not the health code. We hope to remedy that with RHA.
  • Our antiquated state law lacks a health exception, forcing individuals to leave our state for care later in pregnancy, in the rare and tragic cases when their health is at risk or a fetus is not viable.
This has been ten years in the making, so we will be gathering at the Capitol to rally and hopefully witness the passage of the bill on the Assembly and Senate floors. Please join us for this exciting and important moment. We will be gathering at three. The details are in the facebook event I linked to above, but it is important that you register if you plan to join us. This is a free event, but we need to have a tally of who will be joining us for security purposes.

This is a very exciting time to be a New Yorker, which is refreshing when juxtaposed with all the terrible nonsense happening in Washington. We hope you will join us!