Conservatives Call on Legislators to Choose Life

Ft. Hamilton Station, NY – Conservative Party State Chairman, Michael R. Long, called on every Member of the Legislature to defend the defenseless, a child not born. Long urged the Members of the Legislature to reject Governor Eliot Spitzer's proposed bill that expands abortion in New York State. The full legislative memo follows:

The Conservative Party of New York State is committed to the sanctity of life from conception to a natural death.

This proposal seeks to ensure that abortions are legal from conception until the baby takes its first breath on its own if the "health" of the mother becomes a concern. Unfortunately, the "health" of the mother is broadly interpreted to include social, economic and emotional distress factors, rendering the term meaningless.

The proposed bill seeks to move abortion related laws to the public health law making regulation of abortion solely up to the medical profession. By moving the abortion laws from the penal law, it seeks to deny that abortion is the killing of a human being. And in placing the new abortion laws in the public health arena, the Governor's proposal will allow any health care practitioner to perform the procedure. Any health care practitioner, from a dentist to an optometrist, would be allowed to perform an abortion.

The US Supreme Court has upheld parental notification, counseling prior to having an abortion and restricting Medicaid funding of abortion. New York has yet to follow the majority of states that have enacted these regulations, and under the Governor's proposal, any state regulation of abortion would not be permissible.

The proposed bill also seeks to eliminate the conscience protection in current law. Any institution licensed or funded by the state would be required to support abortion, provide coverage for abortion or to perform abortions. Religious hospitals would be required to perform abortions under the Governor's proposal, even though a post-viability abortion would be allowed on an outpatient basis in clinics that are unregulated by public health authorities. And most disturbing is that the Governor's bill would not allow for the type of support facilities necessary to assist a baby who might be born alive in the course of an abortion.

Abortion is taking the life of an innocent child. It is a sad commentary that so many people are willing to kill an unborn child because they find him or her an "inconvenience," a "mistake", a "mass of tissue". With the advances made in sonograms, we all know that this "mass of tissue" is a precious human being who should be protected by its mother, and society as a whole, instead of fighting to kill him or her under any circumstance that suits its mother and guaranteed by the state. It is totally against nature and the natural order of life.
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