Liberation News Service
New York Liberated
ALBANY, N.Y. (LNS)—New York has joined the trend set recently by Hawaii in changing antiquated abortion laws.
The State Senate voted here March 18, 31–26 in favor of a sweeping abortion reform bill, which if passed in its present form by the State Assembly, will remove virtually all restrictions on obtaining an abortion in New York, including residency requirements.
The present New York law, one of the most restrictive in the country, permits abortions only to save the mother’s life. People to Abolish Abortion Laws (PAAL), a broad coalition of welfare, medical and women’s liberation groups including New York Action Core, Redstockings, New York Radical Feminists and the National Organization of Women, have long agitated for unrestricted abortions.
PAAL argues that the current law favors the rich who can afford the fees for psychiatric reports needed to obtain a legal abortion, and who can pay the $400-$1600 it costs to get a safe illegal abortion. In New York 80% of the women who die from bungled illegal abortions are non-white.
The coalition is responsible for much of the pressure put on the Senate to pass the bill. They filed four lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the current law. (Abortion laws in Washington, D.C. and Wisconsin have been declared unconstitutional through similar suits.)
The group is demanding that hospitals make their current facilities for performing abortions available for free, and that free, federally-financed abortion clinics be set up all over the state to insure that abortions do not continue to be the privilege of the rich.
Sidebar: mock advertisement
Capitalize on the most powerful sales incentive ever devised by man: woman.
Clever man, to “devise” such a profitable item. Family, TV, school, magazines, double standards in sex and work, and presto—off the end of the assembly line comes Woman—a totally artificial creation designed to meet the needs of men and of capitalism. Too bad it’s only a mask. Too bad the real person underneath is getting angry and ripping off the mask. The best sales incentive ever invented down the drain.