The Abortion Issue Not Enough New Yorkers are Talking About
Across the country, politicians are restricting people’s rights and freedoms, including the right to abortion and the right for all of us to be who we are.
Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, twenty-one states have either banned or restricted abortion care. There’s also a full-blown assault on LGBTQ rights, with hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced — and many passed — in state legislatures across the country just this year.
Some might think we’re safe from these attacks here in New York, but the truth is there are dangerous loopholes in our state constitution that leave us vulnerable to the whims of politicians.
That’s why the NYCLU is part of a ballot initiative committee formed to pass Proposal 1 this November. Prop 1 – or the New York Equal Rights Amendment as it was previously known – will protect our rights and reproductive freedoms — including the right to abortion. But New York voters have to pass it first.
On this episode, we get into why Prop 1 is so important with New Yorkers for Equal Rights Campaign Director Sasha Ahuja and NYCLU Executive Director, Donna Lieberman. We also delve into the grassroots campaign designed to make sure it succeeds in November.
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Transcript
Simon: [00:00:00] Welcome to Rights This Way, a podcast from the New York Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of New York State. I’m Simon McCormick, senior staff writer at the NYCLU and your host for this podcast, which is focused on the civil rights and liberties issues that impact New Yorkers most.
Simon: Across the country, politicians are restricting people’s rights and freedoms, including the right to abortion and the right for all of us to be who we are. Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, 21 states have either banned or restricted abortion care. There’s also a full blown assault on LGBTQ rights, with hundreds of anti LGBTQ bills introduced, and many passed, in state legislatures across the country just this year.
Simon: Some might think we’re safe from these attacks here in New York, but the truth is, there are dangerous loopholes in our state constitution that leave us vulnerable to the [00:01:00] whims of politicians. That’s why the NYCLU is part of a ballot initiative committee formed to pass Proposal 1 this November. Prop. 1, or the New York Equal Rights Amendment, as it was previously known, will protect our rights and reproductive freedoms, including the right to abortion.
Simon: But New York voters have to pass it first. On this episode, we’ll get into why Prop. 1 is so important, and we’ll also delve into the grassroots campaign designed to make sure it succeeds in November.
Sasha: So, um, just over two years ago, the Supreme Court took a step that many Americans thought would never happen through a decision that was actually the culmination of years and years of trying to overturn and roll back abortion rights.
Sasha: The Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade and Americans were shocked. And I’m sure many, many New Yorkers were absolutely shocked.
Simon: That’s Sasha Ahuja, the campaign director for New Yorkers for Equal Rights, which is a ballot initiative committee dedicated to making sure [00:02:00] Prop. 1, otherwise known as the New York Equal Rights Amendment, passes this November. The amendment will be on the ballot in New York State this election day, and it is a direct response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe as part of its decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case in 2022.
Sasha: Since the Dobbs decision, 21 states have rolled back access to abortion.
Sasha: This means that one in three women and people of reproductive age don’t have access to healthcare, full comprehensive reproductive healthcare in their states. For so many people, they just cannot get access to healthcare and to abortion care on time, in a way that helps them to meet their needs, their urgent healthcare needs.
Sasha: This November, here in New York, voters up and down the state, in addition to voting for candidates for elected office, up and down the ticket will have the unique and essential opportunity to flip their ballot and vote yes on an amendment to protect our rights [00:03:00] and reproductive freedoms.
Simon: Many New Yorkers might think that abortion rights are safe in our state, but those rights might not be as secure as we’d like to think.
Sasha: Pro reproductive health, pro choice members of the state legislature have only had control of the state legislature for eight of the last 58 years. We came really, really close in 2022 to an anti choice, anti equality individual, politician who was running for governor. Coming very, very close to taking the governor’s mansion just about two years ago. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
Sasha: The politics of our state, as every state, continue to change and shift. Proposal one ensures that if the political winds change in Albany, if there is a future election cycle where we don’t have strong pro choice, pro freedom, pro equality caucus in our state legislature. A Governor, for example, who may have different political views than those that we’ve had here in New York in the past, that they can’t roll back our rights, that our rights [00:04:00] are rock solid and are protected in our state’s strongest founding document, our state constitution.
Simon: When abortion rights have been on the ballot, People across the country have voted to support them.
Sasha: In so many of these states, we’ve put these kinds of measures to voters. And we have brought the question of should our state protect abortion rights right here at home? And those measures have appeared in states like Kansas and Kentucky and Ohio and Michigan since 2022.
Sasha: And in every single state, when we’re bringing abortion rights to voters, voters overwhelmingly agree that abortion should be protected in their state’s strongest documents, their state constitutions. So now it’s our turn here in New York.
Simon: But opponents of Prop 1 have launched an all out legal assault to keep the proposal from making it on the ballot in November.
Simon: Thankfully, we recently got some good news on that front.
Sasha: I think the big picture view Is that the opposition, whether we’re in Ohio, or Kansas, or Florida, or [00:05:00] Arizona, or right here in New York, the same extremists who want to roll back our rights are using the same tactics that they’ve used in state after state.
Sasha: And New York is unfortunately no exception. So here in New York, we’ve seen anti abortion extremists really stop at nothing to try to get this measure off the ballot. They don’t want voters voices to be heard. So the opposition has brought, they brought a lawsuit earlier this year. A baseless, frivolous lawsuit that tried to stop this amendment from appearing on the ballot in its tracks.
Sasha: We’re extremely lucky to live in a state, with an attorney general who fought right alongside us, by our side, who got that lawsuit thrown out. The appellate division here in the state of New York affirmatively decided that the Equal Rights Amendment, or now what we’re calling Proposal 1, will in fact appear on the ballot.
Simon: With Prop. 1’s place on the ballot secured, New Yorkers for Equal Rights and the NYCLU, which is a part of the Ballot Initiative Committee, are fully focused on making sure the New York Equal Rights Amendment passes in November. [00:06:00] And even though abortion rights and LGBTQ rights are popular here in New York, Sasha has a warning for any New Yorker who thinks we can just coast to victory.
Sasha: Now here in New York, we often times don’t have high stakes, Measures on the ballot like the one that we have this cycle or that we have in proposal 1. Often times New Yorkers don’t really know if there’s an issue on the ballot, or maybe they feel like they haven’t been educated about an issue on the ballot.
Sasha: In the last couple years, we’ve seen some really, really important issues on the ballot, and they’ve ranged in terms of the kind of campaign that was run in support or against those issues. In 2021, we had really, really important voting rights measures on the ballot, and unfortunately, those voting rights measures were defeated because the opposition had waged a campaign to defeat those ballot measures, spreading lies and misinformation about the impact of making it easier to vote in a state where it’s actually quite hard to vote. That permeated more than our side’s arguments.
Sasha: So look, we’re taking nothing for granted. We know that it’s essential to [00:07:00] educate and engage voters. That in addition to people running for office across partisan affiliation and ideology, importantly, there is an issue that lands really, really well and is extremely popular with voters, which is protecting rights and reproductive freedoms.
Sasha: That’s what Proposal 1 is all about, and that’s what we’re going to be talking to voters up and down the state about.
Simon: To make sure that education and engagement happens, New Yorkers for Equal Rights formed a broad coalition of groups, including the NYCLU, that is dedicated to activating supporters and voters across the state.
Sasha: In June of 2023, we convened racial justice groups and immigrant rights organizations, civil rights organizations, labor unions, and reproductive health rights and justice groups to form what we’re now calling New Yorkers for Equal Rights. We are a ballot initiative committee that is ensuring that we’re educating and engaging voters up and down the state to flip their ballot and vote yes on this critical ballot measure. And so really we’ve been engaging in is a grassroots organizing effort to make sure [00:08:00] that everyone who shows up to vote, no matter their geography or their partisan affiliation, their age or their race or their demographic, that they know exactly what’s on the ballot when it comes to their rights, that they are taking that important step to flip their ballot and vote yes.
Sasha: And look, the coalition is as strong as our organizations that it is made up of. And so we have incredible groups like 1199, who represents thousands of healthcare workers across the state, to the NAACP, to, of course, the New York Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood that are with us in this fight.
Sasha: They have the ability to talk to voters in ways that resonate with everyday people on the ground. Voters that are of and from Buffalo are going to be best fit to talk to other folks in Western New York. And voters that are of and from the eastern end of Long Island are going to be best fit to talk to their friends and their colleagues, and at their town halls and in their member meetings. That’s the kind of coalition that we’re building is one that’s led by people and organizations and organizers.
Sasha: And so that’s how we’re going to get this message out to voters all [00:09:00] across the state. That is so important that you show up, in November or early, during early voting, to vote and flip your ballot and vote yes.
Simon: So where does the NYCLU fit into all of this? For that, we turn to NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman.
Donna: The New York State Equal Rights Amendment is a top priority for the New York Civil Liberties Union because we need to close every loophole in our state constitution to protect equality, to protect equal rights, to protect abortion rights, to protect LGBTQ rights, and more. And we also need to make it a top priority as a service to the rest of the country, which is in our self interest, as well, of course, to ensure that New York is a beacon of hope, a beacon of freedom and equality, a place where people can go and be treated equally.
Donna: And that includes being able to access abortion, and being [00:10:00] able to be respected as who they are.
Simon: Donna also echoes Sasha’s warnings about New York’s tenuous status as a place that protects abortion rights.
Donna: We saw in the last election how purple is made up of deep red and deep blue. And New York is not a blue state.
Donna: New York is a purple state. And look at the congressional delegation from New York from 2022. There were five seats that were reliably seats that, let’s be nonpartisan about this, that would have been represented by people who were pro choice for abortion rights, and were not. And, you know, politics is not predictable.
Donna: So we need to have our New York values enshrined in our Constitution, so that one bad election does not put our rights and liberties in jeopardy for decades to come.
Simon: That’s why the NYCLU [00:11:00] has made Prop. 1 Priority 1.
Donna: We are all in on the ERA campaign, and we are putting out an enormous amount of funding,
Donna: an enormous amount of staff resources, and we are lobbying with the public. We call that organizing, and going out to our members and to our communities, and we’re inviting all New Yorkers to join us in this campaign. The stakes couldn’t be higher. We may not be a red state. We may not be a place where abortion rights are non existent, but the existence, the strength, the viability of our equal rights here in New York is of huge importance to all New Yorkers and to the rest of the country. We need to build the [00:12:00] momentum that we have seen nationwide. Every referendum in the nation that puts abortion rights before the public has passed, mostly overwhelmingly, and in red states, purple states and blue states.
Donna: New York cannot let our country down. We can’t let women down. We can’t let LGBTQ people down. We can’t let everyday New Yorkers down.
Simon: And as with any big campaign, we can’t do it without New Yorkers like you.
Donna: So there’s a lot you can do. First of all, I hate to start with this, but we need money. With energies focused in dire states where there are referenda on the ballot,
Donna: we in New York need your money because what happened last time around with the voting rights amendments where the right wing poured in at the last minute, hundreds of thousands of dollars strategically to misrepresent [00:13:00] those amendments. We will see that in spades this time around in New York. I guarantee you there will be an oppo campaign full of lies, full of misinformation, and the only way that we can fight that is by being on the ground, letting New Yorkers know what the truth is, what the amendment will do, that it will protect their liberties and freedoms and we need to have money to buy ads.
Donna: Simple as that. We can’t do this on a shoestring. Number two, this is a campaign that everybody can own. You can own it by signing up to volunteer on the nyequalrights. org website. Every place where you’re in community, you have the opportunity. At a dinner with friends, at the pool, at the lake, at the beach, wherever you are, talk to folks about the Equal Rights Amendment.
Donna: Arm yourself with the information. It’s readily [00:14:00] available online to dispel the misstatements, the lies about it, and to talk about the value and the need to protect everyone’s personal dignity and equality, our ability to make choices about what happens to our bodies on our own. This is for me. I’m a grandma.
Donna: This is for my daughter. This is for her daughter and my son’s daughter. This is for all New Yorkers. So own it guys. Own it. And if you need help, we’re there. Sign up to volunteer, contact us, and we’ll get back to you. And you can always donate and act.
Simon: As Sasha reminds us, the consequences of not acting could be dire.
Sasha: It is so important this November, New Yorkers, that we show up, we do the right thing. We protect our rights on the ballot by flipping our ballot and voting yes. We can’t take this moment for granted. We’ve done that far too many times. We’ve seen the incredible consequences of that. [00:15:00] And so I encourage every single one of us to show up, to get involved, and to go help us win in November.
Simon: To join the campaign, visit nyequalrights. org. And don’t forget to flip your ballot and vote yes for Prop 1 on Election Day. We at the NYCLU often say you should vote like your rights depend on it. This year, with Prop. 1 on the ballot, that’s never been more true.
Donna: Prop. 1. Flip your ballot. Vote yes.
Simon: See you at the polls.
Simon: Thank you for listening. You can find out more about everything we talked about today by visiting nyclu. org. And you can follow us at NYCLU on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you have questions or comments about Rights This Way, you can email us at podcast at nyclu. org. Until next time, I’m Simon McCormack.
Simon: Thank you for fighting for a fair New [00:16:00] York.
