After the questioning at the federal level of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) by the American Supreme Court, several States are organizing their response. The New York State Senate passed on Friday, July 1, an amendment to codify in the Constitution the rights to abortion and contraception”according to a press release from this assembly, which sits in Albany.
The Senate of the country’s fourth most populous state with a Democratic majority passed the amendment with a vote of 49 in favor and 14 against. The Republicans were divided on the text that six of them finally approved.
This text, which will still have to be voted on by the other chamber of the local Congress, the Assembly, then be adopted by a popular referendum before coming into force at the earliest in 2024, also provides for the protection of the rights “gender, disability, sexual orientation, nationality, community or age”.
Engraving the right to abortion in stone in American state constitutions had begun before the shock decision of the Supreme Court on June 24 which ended the federal legal guarantee of abortion throughout the country.
A dozen states “progressives” and which are displayed in “shrines” of abortion, particularly in the northeastern and western United States – Vermont, Maryland, California, Washington – have already done so or are preparing to do so.
“A big step forward for our state while others are stepping back”
“We refuse to sit idly by while the Supreme Court attacks the rights of New Yorkers”wrote, on Twitter, Kathy Hochul, the governor of the State of New York, in the day.
We refuse to stand idly by while the Supreme Court attacks the rights of New Yorkers.
I am issuing a proclamation… https://t.co/NTCNF3Tfp8
“The Roe vs. Wade reversal is clear evidence that New York State must continue to be at the forefront of the nation in protecting women and individual rights”said Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the Democratic majority in the New York Senate, quoted in the press release.
“This is a big step forward for our state while others are stepping back, and an important stand against the Supreme Court’s attacks on our rights”she adds.
The Roe vs. Wade case law, which since 1973 had established the right to abortion everywhere in the United States, was overturned by a now resolutely conservative Supreme Court, after the appointments of conservative judges decided by former President Donald Trump. It is now up to the fifty American states to decide on abortion. Half of them according to the Guttmacher Institute – especially in the South and the Republican, conservative and religious center – have already banned it or are considering doing so.
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