FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 27, 2016

Speaker Heastie Statement on SCOTUS Decision to Protect Access to Reproductive Health Services


Today, the United States Supreme Court has balanced the scales of justice for every woman who has faced challenges and outright barriers in exercising her constitutionally protected right to choose. Texas is just one of many states that have waged ceaseless campaigns to undermine reproductive health freedoms. Their passage of laws to effectively close health service facilities and force women into potentially life threatening situations is unconscionable.

The landmark Roe v. Wade decision underscored what we in New York have always held to be true: a woman's body is neither the property of others nor a political arena. That state lawmakers would seek to undermine the vital protections afforded by Roe underscores why codifying these protections in law here in New York is so critically important. Opponents of reproductive freedom want nothing more than to strip this cornerstone of equality from millions of women. The Assembly Majority will always support legislation to ensure that it will remain the law of the land here in New York State no matter the challenges to come.

We must realize that until a woman's right to choose is safe from those who would see it revoked, none of the freedoms we have fought so hard to achieve are safe.