National Organization for Women-NYS & Local NOW Chapters Rally for Women's Abortion Rights

ALBANY, NY (11/30/2009)(readMedia)-- On Friday, December 4, at 12:00 noon, the National Organization for Women-NYS, along with local NOW chapter representatives and prominent reproductive rights advocates, will gather outside the office of US Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) at 757 Third Avenue (at East 48th St.) in New York City. According to NOW-NYS President Marcia Pappas, speakers will "recognize and commend Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Senator Schumer for their pro-choice positions, but insist that women's reproductive health must not go back in time."

The focus is the Senate version of the Health Care Reform Bill, which restates the decades-old Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortion. Indeed, these Hyde Amendment restrictions are bad enough, having since 1976 forced many poor women into illegal, unsafe abortions with sometimes fatal results.

But a Stupak/Pitts provision in the House version of the Health Bill added restrictions far in excess of Hyde, preventing even privately-funded insurance plans from covering terminations of unwanted and/or unhealthy pregnancies. It is in this context that NOW-NYS President Marcia Pappas writes: "This worsening of Hyde restrictions must not be allowed in the Senate bill. There is no place in the health care bill for religious right-wing restrictions on women's health."

We further insist that our pro-choice Senator Shumer please never again endorse an anti-choice Democrat. The Democratic platform is stongly pro-choice, and had Democrats welcomed only candidates with this position, this grave danger to women's lives would not be rearing it's head in today's Health Care Reform Bill.

Pappas summed up the issue: "Feminists are not going to support a Health Care Reform Bill that throws fifty-two percent of the population under the bus."

Speakers include: Erin Matson, Action Vice President, National NOW, MarciaPappas, President, NOW-New York State, Sonia Ossorio, President, NOW-New York City, Julie Kirschner, Co-President, Brooklyn/Queens NOW, Rachelle Suissa , Co-President, Brooklyn/Queens NOW, Marilyn Fitterman, Former NOW NYS President, Mary Richmond, President, Albany Area NOW, Zenaida Mendez, President, National Dominican Women's Caucus, Jerin Alam, Chair of Young Feminist Task Force for NOW-NYS, Debra Sweet, Director of The World Can't Wait, Maretta Short, President, New Jersey NOW, Sandy Rapp, Feminist Performer, and Author Bill Baird, Abortion Rights Pioneer