Battle Lines Drawn in Proposition 1 Debate in Campaign’s Waning Stages

As the days dwindle before Election Day, supporters and opponents of New York’s contentious Proposition 1 have sought to sway undecided voters at rallies and news conferences throughout the state.

The issue has come down mostly along party lines, with Democrats and their party’s candidates largely framing the proposition as a surefire way to enshrine the right to abortion into the state constitution two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In addition to language regarding pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, the proposition also includes protections for about 10 other categories, including age, people with disabilities and sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

Meanwhile, Republicans and others have overwhelming campaigned against the proposal, focusing on how it would potentially take away parental consent for medical procedures and jeopardize girls’ sport because of the amendment’s broad language.

On Wednesday, an assortment of Westchester Democratic candidates, including U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Democratic congressional candidate Mondaire Jones, their supporters and those backing Proposition 1 rallied in Tarrytown to urge voters who had not cast their ballots to get to the polls and back the initiative.

Various speakers delivered the message that when it comes to the abortion issue, many Republicans can’t be trusted because they had argued that Roe v. Wade was settled law – until the U.S Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority overturned the 1973 decision in its Dobbs ruling.

“When do we want to accept that women should be second-class citizens in America?” Gillibrand, who is seeking re-election, said at the Tarrytown rally. “When did New York decide that we are okay with half of our population not having full civil rights and civil liberties? Never.”

Author and activist Daphne Uviller, who assisted women having an abortion at a Dutchess County clinic for six years by escorting them to the facility and accompanying them during the procedure, said a study earlier this year from the Guttmacher Institute found that nearly one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

“Everyone who is a champion of forced pregnancy, and last I checked that is a violation of the Geneva Convention, everyone who is a champion of forced pregnancy is a hypocrite because statistically every person in this nation knows someone who’s had an abortion,” Uviller said.

For decades the state constitution has protected its citizens from discrimination based on race, color, creed or religion. The text of the amendment now adds various categories to read as follows:

“No person shall, because of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed [or], religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy, be subjected to any discrimination in [his or her] their civil rights by any other person or by any firm, corporation, or institution, or by the state or any agency or subdivision of the state.”

While opposition to the amendment has centered on political figures, on Friday a group of prominent Black pastors representing various Church of God of Christ congregations throughout the state urged defeat of Proposition 1 mainly because they believe it threatens to take away parental authority and consent regarding their children. It would likely spawn lawsuits using the loosely defined discrimination based on age that could result in challenges about whether parents must be engaged in transitional care or other life-altering medical procedures. It could even threaten age requirements for senior housing, according to the clergy.

If lawsuits are successful, schools will then have greater latitude to keep crucial information about a child from their parents, they argued.

“Proposition 1 is a blatant attempt, in my opinion, to suppress religious liberty, and I think that’s because if Proposition 1 is not defeated it will empower the courts to impose and uphold policies that conflict with the old belief systems of individuals and families,” said Bishop Kevin Griffin, who leads a congregation in Manhattan. “The religious community has always played a vital role in shaping the values in bringing up children while emphasizing the importance of parental guidelines and the sanctity of families.”

While there are currently many protections that are in place to regulate minors seeking medical care, for example, passage of Proposition 1 could open many of the long-held laws to legal challenges and ultimately revisions, said Sash Silvera of the Coalition to Protect Kids-NY.

“It will happen through litigation, through legal disputes, so you’ll have protected classes under the new constitutional framework finding that the existing laws leave them out or discriminate against them,” Silvera said.

Chaplain Ayesha Kreutz, of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of New York, said she finds it unsettling that the supporters have only stressed abortion rights. If the legislators were forthright about the far-reaching protections the amendment would provide, each one of the new categories should have been debated, she said.

Kreutz called it “very deceptive and just disingenuous.”

“When you couple abortion with some of the other categories like age, we are asking, again, for a new framework,” Kreutz said.

Richard Rifkin, the legal director at Albany Law School and an expert on New York State constitutional law, said claims that Proposition 1 would usurp parental rights are “probably false,” but it may not be known until courts would be forced to rule on a case.

In his view as an attorney, if a doctor declined to treat a minor for elective surgery because of their age and the lack of parental consent, he would argue the doctor is not acting in a discriminatory manner, he said.

“Since this hasn’t been enacted, we don’t know how courts will interpret it,” Rifkin said. “If the courts had interpreted it, I could give you a definitive answer.”

Including these categories in the constitution makes it more difficult to overturn because statutes can be reversed through a majority vote of both houses of the legislature and having a law signed by the governor, Rifkin added. A constitutional amendment requires passage by the legislature for two consecutive years and approval of the voters.

However, whether it’s abortion or any of the categories listed in the amendment, the more protections for New York’s citizens the better, said state Sen. Peter Harckham (D-Lewisboro) who attended the Tarrytown rally.

“There’s a lot of false information being put out there on the other side,” Harckham said. “(The amendment) has two simple things: codify Roe v. Wade into the New York State constitution and it codifies existing human rights protections in New York State law in the constitution. Equal treatment under the law is not a radical concept. That’s what we believe in New York, that’s what we’re going to fight for.”