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Additional Abortion Protections Proposed By Assemblyman

Three pieces of legislation to protect New York doctors performing abortions are taking on a new light in the wake of a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

Assemblyman Charles Lavine, D-Glen Cove, recently introduced A.9613, A.9615 and A.9627, prompted by the Supreme Court’s pending decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“It was just yesterday that a major Long Island publication featured the critical issue of abortion rights and my proposed legislation which would protect New Yorkers from being criminally charged in anti-abortion states,” Lavine said earlier this week. “Today, I am appalled by one of the most dangerous and abhorrent attacks on women’s rights and human rights in American history. It is very likely that the Trump Court will overturn Roe in the coming days, even though the anti-abortion justices promised the American people that they would not. Elections certainly have consequences. It will fall upon the states to provide the legal support for a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. While some states will suppress that freedom, I will never relent in fighting for reproductive health. Abortion rights are human rights. New Yorkers have a proud history of defending the rights of our people. We will not sit passively as states with authoritarian governments enact laws suppressing human rights. With more than 20 states passing such damaging laws in the last months, the people of the State of New York will not enable and empower those repressive and authoritarian regimes.”

The legislation to which Lavine referred was introduced at the end of March, before the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

A.9613 prohibits courts and county clerks from issuing subpoenas in connection with out of state abortion proceedings. This bill prohibits New York courts from cooperating with out-of-state civil and criminal cases relating to abortions in those states. Lavine said in his legislative justification that most states have enacted some form of the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act allowing litigants to take depositions and engage in discovery with people from another state. Lavine, himself a lawyer, wants to prevent New York from participating in abortion-related depositions if the abortion was done legally in New York.

A.9615 provides legal protections for providers of abortions in New York. The bill would prevent New York law enforcement agencies from becoming cooperating arms of police in the anti-abortion states by prohibiting them from cooperating with anti-abortion state investigations relating to abortions.

A.9627 prohibits the extradition of abortion providers. This bill creates a New York statutory exception for the extradition of abortion providers. Some states, Lavine wrote in his legislative justification, have laws obligating the state to extradite accused criminals even if they have never been in the state and have not fled — meaning a state could extradite a doctor practicing in New York who performs an abortion on a patient from another state.

“Abortion rights are human rights,” Lavine stated, “New Yorkers have a proud history of defending the rights of our people. We will not sit passively as states with authoritarian governments enact laws suppressing human rights. With more than 20 states passing such damaging laws in the last months, the People of the State of New York will not serve as simple bystanders.”

Lavine’s proposed legislation joins legislation (A.8286) introduced in October by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, and co-sponsored by Lavine and Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, D-Bronx, exempting a New York resident from a money or property judgement arising from an action in another state when the New Yorker aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion. Paulin’s bill was introduced after the Texas Heartbeat Act took effect last fall.

“New York has been a leader in preserving a woman’s right to bodily autonomy,” Paulin wrote in her legislative justification. “In 2019, the Reproductive Health Act was enacted, codifying the right to an abortion set out in Roe v. Wade. The Texas Heartbeat Act goes against the very principals of our state and sets a very dangerous precedent for women.”

The Texas law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks, though there is scientific debate as to what constitutes cardiac activity. Medical experts say the cardiac activity is not an actual heartbeat but rather an initial flutter of electric activity within cells in an embryo. They say the heart doesn’t begin to form until the fetus is at least nine weeks old, and they decry efforts to promote abortion bans by relying on medical inaccuracies.

Besides banning abortions after cardiac activity is detected, the bill would change all references to “fetus” in the state’s abortion laws to “unborn child.”While a dozen states have tried to enact bans early in pregnancy, those laws have been blocked by courts.

Legislators around the country are taking up abortion proposals while waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Maryland lawmakers this week passed a bill expanding access to abortion by ending a restriction that only physicians provide them and requiring most insurance plans to cover abortion care without cost.

“This is a big deal,” said Karen Nelson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Maryland. “We know that just because it’s legal on the books does not always mean that there’s access, and so today the Maryland General Assembly made sure that there will be access.”

The bill would remove a legal restriction preventing nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physician assistants from providing abortions. It would create an abortion care training program and requires $3.5 million in state funding annually.

Opponents said the measure went too far.

“This bill is expanding further out,” said Sen. Justin Ready, a Carroll County Republican. “Maryland already is one of only four states that forces taxpayers to fund abortion, and we force it at pretty much every stage of the process.”

The new conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that banned states from outlawing abortion. If they do, at least 26 states are likely to either ban abortion outright or severely limit access, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports abortion rights.

That would force many women to travel to other states to get abortions, prompting Democratic-led legislatures like Maryland’s to pass new laws to prepare for them.

Also this week, the Republican-led Missouri House of Representatives on Tuesday advanced a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, ban fetal tissue donations and put additional restrictions on abortion. It needs another House vote to move to the Republican-led Senate.

The measure also bans fetal-tissue donation and would allow family members to file wrongful death lawsuits if babies are born after an abortion and then die.

Planned Parenthood currently is reimbursed for providing health care for low-income recipients of government health insurance. Republican lawmakers are trying to block any public funding from going to Planned Parenthood, including clinics that do not provide abortions.

Abortion opponents in Missouri have for years sought to stop any taxpayer money from going to Planned Parenthood. But legislators struggled with “loopholes” that allowed Planned Parenthood clinics that provide other health care to continue receiving funding.

Lawmakers were able to stop money from going to Planned Parenthood in the 2019 fiscal year by forgoing some federal funding to avoid requirements that the clinics be reimbursed if low-income patients go there for birth control, cancer screenings and other preventative care. Missouri instead used state money to pay for those services.

But the Missouri Supreme Court in 2020 ruled that lawmakers violated the constitution by making the policy change through the state budget, forcing the state to reimburse Planned Parenthood for health care provided to Medicaid patients.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report

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