The state with a Democratic majority adopted an amendment to include abortion and contraception in the Constitution after the Supreme Court’s shock decision to no longer guarantee abortion at the federal level.
The State of New York, anchored on the left, wants to engrave in its Constitution the rights to abortion and contraception thanks to a first text of law voted on Friday, in reaction to the questioning of abortion by the Court supreme conservative of the United States.
The Senate of the fourth most populous state in the country and with a Democratic majority “has adopted an amendment to codify in the Constitution the rights to abortion and contraception”, according to a press release from this assembly which sits in the capital of State, in Albany.
This text, which will still have to be voted on by the other chamber of the local Congress, the Assembly, then be adopted by a popular referendum before coming into force at the earliest in 2024, also provides for the protection of rights related to “gender , disability, sexual orientation, nationality, community or age”.
Engraving the right to abortion in stone in US state constitutions had begun before the Supreme Court’s shock ruling on June 24 that ended the federal legal guarantee of abortion nationwide.
A dozen “sanctuary” states
A dozen “progressive” states that claim to be abortion “sanctuaries”, particularly in the northeastern and western United States – Vermont, Maryland, California, Washington – have already done so. or are preparing to do so.
“The U-turn on Roe v. Wade is clear evidence that New York State must continue to be at the forefront of the nation in protecting women and individual rights,” said the Democratic Majority Leader. in the New York Senate, cited in the press release.
The Roe v. Wade, who had established the right to abortion throughout the United States since 1973, was overturned by a now staunchly conservative Supreme Court, after the appointments of conservative judges decided by former President Donald Trump.
It is now up to the 50 states to decide on abortion. Half of them according to the Guttmacher Institute – especially in the South and the Republican, conservative and religious center – have already banned it or are considering doing so.