NYCLU Response to Expected Mention of NY Abortion Law in State of the Union Address

The New York Civil Liberties Union released the following response to anticipated remarks by President Trump at tonight’s State of the Union Address regarding New York’s passage last month of the Reproductive Health Act.

In recent days the Administration has previewed that the president will condemn New York’s update to its abortion law, and anti-abortion groups have indicated they will use the Reproductive Health Act’s passage as a wedge issue in the 2020 campaign.

The following statement is attributable to NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman:

“Anti-abortion misinformation and smears are nothing new. President Trump is calling out New York state because we’re winning against his backward agenda and expanding rights for New Yorkers. More states should be proactively protecting abortion care, putting women’s health first and leaving medical decisions to women and their health providers.

“What New York’s Reproductive Health Act does is fix our state law so that New York finally complies with Roe v. Wade. The Act offers the same protections as Roe, which has been law for 50 years, and knocks down medically-unnecessary restrictions to care. Since seven in ten Americans support Roe v. Wade, that means Americans are with New York.   

“The President and anti-abortion forces are selling the same con they always do. They use inflammatory language and set up straw men to distract from their radical agenda. They want to stand between women and their health providers and push abortion totally out of reach. We won’t forget that this is the President who admitted he wanted to punish a woman who has an abortion.

“Well, Mike and Donald, it’s time to wake up.

“We won’t stand for laws that don’t recognize that pregnancy and medical care are complex and personal. One in four women in America has an abortion. Determining what treatment is needed and what is best for a woman’s health should be left to her and the professional judgement of medical professionals – not our lawmakers, and certainly not Donald Trump or Mike Pence.”