Reproductive Freedom

“Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that this would never come to pass. I fully appreciate that this is the termination of my political career. But what’s the use of getting elected or reelected if you don’t stand for something?”  

In 1970, on the floor of the New York State Assembly, George Michaels, a Democratic Assemblyman representing a rural district including the City of Auburn—a district not unlike our 150th—changed his vote and supported a woman’s right to a legal abortion. As he foresaw, it was the end of his political career. 

But his single vote made the difference and gave women the right to make safe and legal consequential decisions about their pregnancies and their lives.

At the time, three years before Roe v. Wade, New York State became the first state to provide women this legal right. It was the first state to recognize that the too oftentimes alternative—frightening, unsanitary, sometimes murderous, usually health- and life-threatening, back alley terminations—was unacceptable. New York’s became a model law for other states and was ultimately picked up by the highest court in the country in Roe v. Wade.

Now, the wheel has again turned against women’s freedom to control their own bodies.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned more than 50 years of legal protections for women and their right to make decisions about their lives and their bodies. It has led to states restricting women’s medical care. Doctors and hospitals in an increasing number of states won’t care for pregnant women in emergencies, when their pregnancies are not viable, or even when they miscarry, threatening their health and their lives.

And, the efforts to restrict women’s right to control their bodies—which ultimately limits their personal and economic freedom—does not stop at restricting the right to medically safe abortion. The restrictive efforts extend to legislative initiatives to restrict access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and contraception.

We cannot go back.

Women and their lives and families in New York State are not assuredly free. While George Michaels’s vote provided statutory protection for women, there are loopholes in our state constitution that leave us vulnerable. There are politicians who are dead-set on rolling back women’s rights just as they have done across the country. 

We can choose to support a constitutional amendment that enshrines a woman’s right to reproductive health and freedom. 

If enough of us say “yes” as George Michaels did 54 years ago, we will honor his courage and legacy and ensure that women and families in New York State do not go back to 1970.