Posted on 02/10/2006 10:23:56 AM PST by presidio9
State Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, vowed Thursday to "do everything in my power" to preserve women's access to abortion in New York if the newly configured U.S. Supreme Court moves to reopen the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. He also spoke in favor of improving adoption services and prenatal care for pregnant women, and a better dialogue with abortion foes on how to curb unwanted pregnancies.
"There are people of good will with deep moral and religious beliefs who oppose abortion," Spitzer said in a speech at New York Law School. "They are honorable and thoughtful, and their position in the national debate should be respected."
Accepting the endorsement of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, Spitzer reiterated his support for late-term abortion if the procedure were deemed necessary to preserve a pregnant woman's life or health. But he also called for abortions to be "safe, legal and rare," a standard first set by former President Bill Clinton and adopted recently by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
While not naming Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi, a likely rival for the Democratic nomination who has offered a plan to reduce abortions, Spitzer said the abortion debate should not be "about tinkering with a point here or there or shading an argument to placate one crowd or another."
Tuesday, Suozzi announced a $1 million Common Sense for the Common Good Initiative, promoting birth control, adoption, housing for unwed mothers and abstinence. He awarded eight grants to groups across the abortion rights spectrum, from Planned Parenthood to Catholic Charities.
NARAL Pro-Choice New York immediately criticized the program because some of the grants went to anti-abortion groups that promote abstinence-only sex education.
Spitzer declined to comment directly on Suozzi's proposal, saying he had not had time to review it. But he said he would be willing to consider abstinence-based programs as one part of a larger effort to reduce abortions.
"Abstinence is an important part of it, but it's not sufficient," Spitzer said.
Suozzi has said he supports abortion rights and would support late-term abortions if a woman's life or health were at risk.
I don't see any change in Florida abortion data. Meanwhile, there was a huge drop in NY and NJ.
Are the people of New York State ignorant enough to elect another secular moron to office.
Elliot or is that Idiot?
1. Abortions have become prohibitively expensive in those states.
2. Both NY and NJ provide anti-pregnancy patches to women on medicaid, which has been partially responsible for reducing abortion rates.
3. There has been an outflow of the traditional underclass from the NYC metro area (including North Jersey) to Pennsylvania and the South, due again to the increased cost of living. They have been replaced by immigrants of various nationalities who haven't been seduced by the abortion culture (yet).
4. White folk in New York are well supplied with birth control, including the morning after pill, meaning you don't see too many white folks with either children or histories of abortion in New York over the past 15 years. NYC and many of its suburbs (outside of the immigrant communities from Latin America, Asia, and the middle east), has become a region of DINKs and SINKs.
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