Hochul's Plan To Protect Abortion Rights : 'Access Is Safe In NY'

LONG ISLAND, NY —Gov. Kathy Hochul took a stand for abortion rights in New York Monday, laying out a plan with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would help educate women about their legal protections and ensure information about reproductive rights is accessible and available.

The move comes after the Supreme Court upheld a Texas law banning most abortions to remain in place, leaving women in most cases without access to abortion.

In early September, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to deny an emergency appeal that aimed to block enforcement of the law; challenges are still possible. The legislation prohibits abortions once cardiac activity in a fetus can be detected, around six weeks.

Hochul also directed the Department of Health to take immediate action to develop and distribute provider guidance on the right to provide abortion care and to ensure updates to existing regulations are adopted so that medication abortion can be more easily accessed during telehealth visits, she said.

"Abortion access is safe in New York‚ the rights of those who are seeking abortion services will always be protected here," Hochul said. "This plan will affirm that in our state, and leaders like Senator Gillibrand, will fight on a national level. To the women of Texas, I want to say I am with you. Lady Liberty is here to welcome you with open arms."

Hochul also wrote a letter to Facebook, asking for information efforts to mitigate the spread of abortion misinformation online and to take new action to combat misinformation about abortion laws, regulations, and availability, Hochul said.

Facebook did not immediately return a request for comment.

"My friends, since September when the Supreme Court let stand the Texas travesty on September 1, we were a little preoccupied with a hurricane hitting at that moment, but I didn't realize it was another hurricane brewing in our nation's capital at that moment as well," Hochul siad.

Since then, she said, rights that women took for granted, rights her grandmother fought for and that she assumed would be there for her daughter, 30, might be in jeopardy.

"All of a sudden that sense of security we once had in our nation has been ripped apart, shredded," Hochul said.

Hochul said when she was six weeks' pregnant, she did not even know and went whitewater rafting.

"So you're denied the choice that should be yours as a woman and something we took for granted by Texas — who thinks six weeks is the magic date that you should have been aware, or you should know this — and that is grotesquely unfair," Hochul said.

Hochul said she is glad the Department of Justice is taking Texas to court.

In 2019, New York passed the Reproductive Health Act, Hochul said. "We analyze all the social media that was going on at that time, and from January 1 to March 20, 2019, four out of 10 top stories receiving the most engagement on Facebook were articles about our very own Reproductive Health Act. And they are from anti-choice news sources that absolutely misrepresented and lied about the bill," Hochul said. Of the letter to Facebook, Hochul said: "I'll be watching, and let them know we have expectations."

Gillibrand said at the federal level, she believes the Women's Health Protection Act, which would create federal protections against state restrictions that fail to protect women's health and intrude upon personal decision-making, must be passed.