Position Papers

members Toi Clawson and Lynn Lewandowski on Legislative Advocacy Day 2007
Legislative Advocacy Day, 2008

 

Statement opposing: Women’s Health and Privacy Protection Act (S5829)

Feminists Choosing Life of New York strongly opposes Governor Spitzer’s Women’s Health and Privacy Protection Act (5829) on the basis that it threatens the medical safety of women, disregards and disrespects the life of the fetus at all stages of development and leaves abortion as the ONLY choice for women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.  Governor Spitzer’s bill is dangerous and blatantly promotes and supports legal but unsafe abortions for women. 

S5829 Threatens the safety of women

  • The abortion procedure would no longer require a licensed physician to be present.(S1201)
  • Makes prosecution for coerced, forced or so called “botched” abortions impossible due to removal of all abortion terminology.
  • No protection for women who unknowingly receive abortion medication from someone who does not want her to continue her pregnancy.
  • Prevents medical examiners from investigating deaths caused by suspected criminal abortion.
  • Abortions leading to a woman’s death cannot be tried as Manslaughter even if performed by an unauthorized provider.

S5829 Disregards and Disrespects the Life of the Fetus at all stages of Development

  • Seeks to override the Supreme Court ban on Partial Birth abortion by allowing termination up to the point of birth if a physician deems it necessary for the “health” of the woman.  This term, “health of the woman” is intentionally subjective and unspecific, thus can be used for virtually any minor medical or emotional difficulty.  The Supreme Court ruled that PBA is never medically necessary.

S5829 Leaves abortion as the ONLY choice for Women Experiencing Unplanned Pregnancy

  • Removes all possibility of enacting parental consent laws for minors seeking abortion.
  • Removes all possibility of enacting Unborn Victims of Violence legislation.
  • Bars state funds from being appropriated to abstinence or abortion-alternative education programs and forces public school sex education programs to encourage abortion and contraception over other alternatives

FCLNY believes this legislation has been proposed as a calculated political maneuver at the expense of all women and that the very title of the bill is designed to deceive. Don’t be fooled. Feminists Choosing Life urges you tovote “NO” to S5829

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Statement supporting: Research using Adult Stem Cells, Amniotic Stem Cells and Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells.

Feminists Choosing Life of New York supports state funding for research using adult stem cells, amniotic stem cells and umbilical cord blood research and banking.

  • Adult stem cell research has already led to treatments and therapies for Alzheimer’s disease, bone cancer, brain damage, leukemia, diabetes, eye degeneration, heart disease, immune system disorders, kidney/liver problems, MS, MD, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries and burn traumas. (Various sources, available upon request). No treatments are derived from embryonic stem cells.
  • Supporters of embryonic stem cell research are intentionally misleading the media and the public by minimalizing and distorting the successes in non-embryonic stem cell researches. These researchers and politician seek to secure funds for themselves and their districts with hopes of future licensing rights for created embryonic stem cell lines. (“Stem Cell Politics: Divide and Conquer”, by James P. Kelly, Director of Cures 1st Foundation. www.theseoultimes.com),
  • No licensing rights are possible through treatments using adult stem cells, amniotic stem cells or umbilical cord blood cells.
  • Adult stem cells, amniotic stem cells and umbilical cord blood cells are plentiful and their collection is safe, non-evasive and completely ethical. No exploitation of women or pre-born humans is required as in embryonic stem cell research.
  • Research involving adult stem cells, amniotic stem cells and umbilical cord blood cells does not represent a threat to the health and well-being of women.
  • 70 principal diseases and disorders are successfully being treated using cord blood stem cells. These diseases and disorders are listed in full on the National Donor Marrow Program website. (www.marrow.org and affiliated web pages),
  • Despite bans on cloning and embryonic stem cell harvesting, Pennsylvania and Minnesota are leaders in pharmaceutical and biotechnology employment.
  • In the recent discovery of amniotic fluid stem cells, researchers have found them to be easily cultured and genetically stable with capabilities of extensive self-renewal. Representing the stage of development between embryonic and adult stem cells, amniotic fluid stem cells “hold the potential for a variety of therapeutic applications” (Nature Biotechnology; 25, 100-106, Jan. 7, 2007).

Feminists Choosing Life of New York is a pro-life/pro-woman organization that seeks to open minds to its philosophy of pro-life feminism, the belief that all people, by virtue of their human dignity, have a right to live without violence from conception to natural death.

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Statement in support of UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE ACT

A.5777, sponsored by Michael Benjamin
S3117 by Serphin Maltese

Summary: This bill would amend New York’s conflicting status of penal codes 120 and 125, in relation to the unborn victims of violence act, to define a victim as any person born or unborn, at any stage of gestation. This bill protects and upholds all legal abortion rights in New York State.

  • 31 states currently provide full or partial protection for pregnant women and their unborn children who are victims of fatal violence. Anything less than complete protection beginning at conception is unacceptable.
  • According to The Washington Post, 1,367 pregnant and post-partum women were murdered between 1990-2004. (Actual numbers are assumed to be much higher as there is no systematic collection of pregnancy status on US death certificates or through FBI homicide investigations).
  • 1 out of 5 pregnant homicide victims are teenagers. (JAMA, 2001)
  • Black women are three times more likely than white women to be murdered during pregnancy (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
  • Unborn victims of violence legislation will protect a woman’s choice to carry her child safely to term. New York State acts strongly to protect a woman’s right to legal abortion thus has an equal obligation to protect a woman’s right to carry her child to term. To deny a pregnant woman full protection, is to discriminate against her on the basis of that pregnancy.
  • Unborn victims of violence legislation will provide justice to families of pregnant homicide victims by allowing for additional charges against the perpetrator for the death of the unborn child (ren).
  • The murder of a pregnant woman is often a last act of domestic violence. This homicide should be considered, in most cases, a coerced abortion.

Feminists Choosing Life of New York, a statewide pro-life/pro-woman organization, strongly supports the passage of this legislation in New York. Currently, women in this state are stripped of their ability to seek justice on behalf of their unborn children while abusers and killers are protected from full prosecution. This bill is a long-overdue step towards correction of the inconsistency and inadequacy of New York State’s promotion of equal rights for women and protection of its children.

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Statement of Protest against: Approved Health Budget laws A4308/S2108 and A4304/S2104 which enact the “Empire State Stem Cell Board and Trust Fund.

Feminists Choosing Life of New York opposes state funding of embryonic stem cell research and human cloning:

  • Embryonic stem cell research, with its limitless need for women’s eggs, is exploitative to women. The long term health effects of ovary hyper-stimulation drugs are largely uninvestigated but include: ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (6%), nausea, infection, blood clots, kidney failure, colon cancer, and other cancers. (Nature.com; August 2006).
  • Young women, women of color and women living in poverty are particularly susceptible to exploitation through the lure of financial gain through donation of their eggs.
  • According to the Family Research Council, there have been at least 25 deaths in the United States and 5 in the United Kingdom due to adverse reactions to ovary hyper-stimulation drugs.
  • There are no federal guidelines protecting women who donate their eggs. (New England Journal of Medicine; 3/29/07)
  • Embryonic stem cell research is unethical due to the necessary destruction of a human embryo in order to obtain the desired cells. To create a life through therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer, with the specific intent on its destruction, is unacceptable and ghastly.
  • Funding for embryonic stem cell research diverts valuable funding options away from adult stem cell research which already offers successful treatment for 70+ diseases. Additional treatments using adult stem cells, umbilical cord stem cells and amniotic fluid stem cells will soon be available. Treatments using embryonic stem cells is decades away.
  • Gov. Spitzer’s Health budget law leaves no leeway for outside oversight of activities regarding embryonic stem cell research. The allotted $600 million is exclusively under his control with much power given to his health commissioner.

Feminists Choosing Life of New York strongly protests the approval of public funding for the Empire State Stem Cell Board and Trust Fund and encourages lawmakers to consciously seek out ways to oversee and influence the trust fund and asks them to sponsor legislation for non-embryonic stem cell research.

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