NOW - NEW YORK STATE OPPOSE MEMO
S-3117(Maltese)/A-5777 (Benjamin) -
Unborn Victims of Violence Act
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NOW New York State, Inc. strongly opposes bill S-3117/A-5777 which would amend
the penal law in relation to fetal death and injury. This legislation would
wrongly establish the “personhood” of a fetus so that a fetus in
any stage of gestation may be considered the victim of an assault.
NO fetus at any stage of gestation may be the victim of an assault or homicide
and the National Organization for Women-New York State abhors the attempt at
making a distinction between the potential mother and the fetus. The fetus
is part of a woman’s physiology and is the property of her own being.
Any attempt to legally segregate the fetus from the woman for the purposes
of this legislation shall constitute an assault on the woman and as such shall
be deemed unconstitutional.
Such an attempt to deny women their rights by legally forcing them to surrender
compartments of their own body both to the criminal and the state is itself
a CRIME against women. The attempt to divide a woman’s own body into
compartments and objectify them in the manner that this bill attempts to do
is a denigration of women and a CRIME against their humanity.
In the US Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court
ruled that if a fetus was considered a human being, the constitutional implication
would be that the fetus would have the full protections of the Constitution,
thus outweighing the right to privacy granted under the 14th Amendment that
was the basis of granting a woman the right to abort a pregnancy. Deeming the
fetus a human being would wrongly expand its rights to equal that of a woman,
beginning at the moment of conception when the woman may not yet even be cognizant
of its presence.
By giving the fetus the status of a “person”, a woman’s
right to an abortion and reproductive health services would be altered and
restricted. Were this legislation to become law, many doctors would be unwilling
to perform the most basic health care procedures for pregnant women, due to
potential criminal liability. Doctors who perform abortions in conservative
districts would potentially face prosecution under this law, and women would
be confronted with greater obstacles when seeking safe and legal abortions.
This bill is a flagrantly unconstitutional proposal, threatening rights that
were affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court and which continue to be affirmed by
both the United States Constitution and the New York State Constitution. Domestic
violence will not be diminished by this act, but the rights of women will be
greatly and negatively affected. The National Organization for Women – New
York State, Inc. strongly urges the New York State Legislature to oppose this
unacceptable attempt to establish the supremacy of fetuses over the life of
a woman.
Marcia A. Pappas, President, NOW-NYS, Inc.
Dorothy Jiji, Chair, Reproductive Rights Task Force
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