April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
Vote denied on abortion ban
Kathleen Gallagher, associate director for the New York State Catholic Conference, claimed that the Assembly, especially the Democrats, will not allow the abortion ban to come to the floor for a vote because "it's clear that Speaker [Sheldon] Silver knows if this bill ever came to the floor, the pro-life people would win."
The Catholic Conference represents the state's bishops on matters of public policy.
Arcane excuse
The partial-birth abortion bill was held up in the Assembly Health Committee in favor of a budget reform bill after the Assembly members voted that only one bill per legislative session could be subject to a motion-to-discharge.The Democratic majority had argued that position and that they should be the ones to decide the bill to be discharged. The Republican minority argued the opposite position.
The issue the Assembly actually ended up voting on was whether to allow the abortion ban to be substituted for the budget reform bill as the one "motion-to-discharge" item. The vote was 75-66 against allowing the substitution.
"They were changing the rules as the clock was ticking," Mrs. Gallagher told The Evangelist. "The thought of having a vote was encouraging. Unfortunately, it was on such a convoluted question. But considering that, I think 75-66 was a very decent margin for us."
Bi-partisan
If the vote had been directly on a motion-to-discharge the ban on partial-birth abortions (rather than on substituting it for another bill), Mrs. Gallagher pointed out that the Assembly would have needed 76 votes to defeat it -- one more vote than they had. She was also pleased that 14 Democrats joined the Assembly Republicans in voting in favor of substituting the abortion bill for the budget bill.The Catholic Conference official applauded Assembly Minority Leader John Faso's impassioned defense of a vote on the ban, noting that he called himself "angry, shocked and ashamed" to be a part of the Assembly in light of its actions.
The Conference plans to "regroup and re-strategize," and meet with pro-life groups before planning its next steps. Since some of the language in the existing partial-birth abortion ban has been struck down in other courts in the country, Mrs. Gallagher said the Conference may consider rewriting the bill.
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