Here's why the fight for women's rights ain't won!!

[Ralph]

From The New York Times:

August 1, 2005
Pataki Will Veto New Rule on Pill
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and AL BAKER

Gov. George E. Pataki's aides said last night that he would veto a bill to make the so-called morning-after pill available without a prescription, prompting outrage among abortion-rights advocates.

Kevin C. Quinn, a spokesman for the governor, said in a statement that the governor's main objection was that the bill did not include provisions that would prevent minors from having access to the drug.

Mr. Quinn said the governor would be willing to reconsider the measure if the Legislature drafted and passed a new bill that addressed his concerns about the drug's availability to minors, as well as "other flaws."

Mr. Pataki's decision comes as he lays the groundwork for a presidential run in 2008 and underscores the forces he must negotiate as he steps onto the national stage.

Mr. Pataki's position as a longtime supporter of abortion rights has enabled him to survive in heavily Democratic New York for three terms. Had he signed the bill, he would have angered national conservatives, who are adamantly opposed to the emergency contraception and whose support he will need.

The governor revealed his position after he was asked about plans by Naral Pro-Choice New York, to start a nationwide television advertising blitz intended to pressure him into backing the bill.

The group's planned blitz stems from Mr. Pataki's initial refusal to say whether he would support the bill, which would make the morning-after pill, which prevents pregnancy after sex, available to women and girls without a prescription. When told of the advertising campaign last night, the Pataki administration reacted with surprise and later said the governor would veto the measure.

That spurred fierce criticism from abortion-rights advocates, who noted the difficulty in getting the Republicans, who control the Senate, to pass the measure the first time.

"It was a Herculean task to get it through the Senate and get the support of right-to-life senators who saw this as good common ground prevention," said Kelli Conlin, executive director of Naral Pro-Choice New York. Noting that Mr. Pataki had not raised any concerns about minors' having access to the drug before, she accused him of trying to placate conservatives in his possible presidential bid.

Further, Ms. Conlin noted that under Mr. Pataki, the state has covered the costs of abortions and abortion-inducing drugs for low-income minors. "This is about pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party rather than doing what's right for the women of New York," she said.

Mr. Quinn, the governor's spokesman, denied that politics had played into the decision.

The back and forth over the legislation comes just days after Mr. Pataki announced he would forgo a fourth term in a move that many took as a sign that he was preparing to explore a run for the White House.

Despite Mr. Pataki's decision, the abortion-rights group said it intended to start the ad campaign today in Iowa and New Hampshire, states that traditionally begin the process of selecting a presidential nominee, and in New York. The advertisements suggested that his refusal to support the legislation was nothing short of political opportunism.

Opening to the sounds of "Hail to the Chief," the ad notes Mr. Pataki's long support for women's reproductive rights and then accuses him of engaging in a brazen effort to curry favor with the right wing of the Republican Party.

Seven other states have similar laws on emergency contraception. The pill, which has been shown to be effective at preventing pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, has been at the center of a national debate. It is classified as a contraceptive and acts in most cases by preventing ovulation or fertilization. Because it may also prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, it has also become a flashpoint in the debate over abortion.

The federal Food and Drug Administration has declined to allow the pill to be sold over the counter, even though two of its advisory committees voted in 2003 that it should be. In Illinois, after some pharmacists balked at dispensing the pills to women with prescriptions, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich issued an order requiring them to do so.

Politically, the stakes are high. In Massachusetts, for example, Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican who supports abortion rights in certain instances, recently vetoed a similar bill, prompting speculation that he, too, was laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

New York has historically been birth-control friendly. It also passed a law legalizing abortion before the United States Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. The Assembly is set to send the bill to Mr. Pataki by Saturday.

In substance, the bill would allow pharmacists and nurses to dispense the pill to women or girls of any age who do not have prescriptions.

Proponents say it will help women get the pill early enough to be effective on weekends, when seeing a doctor can be difficult. They also say it may help prevent more than 80,000 abortions in New York each year.

In New York, Mr. Pataki has been facing public pressure to support the bill, not only from Democrats but also from Republicans.

The issue had created a political quandary for Mr. Pataki, and it still may, since it is unclear how the Legislature will respond. Mr. Pataki's allies among abortion-rights advocates were clearly hoping to shame him into signing the measure by running the national ads, at the same time that opponents of abortion had been vowing retribution if he did.

Ms. Conlin noted that Mr. Pataki had supported measures that were far more offensive to anti-abortion forces than this one. She said that in 2000 his administration implemented a policy allowing Medicaid to pay for RU-486, the abortion-inducing drug.

"If you look at his record throughout his tenure as governor, you would be led to believe that he would sign this," she said, referring to the bill heading toward his desk. "Our ads are a way to help him remember his principles and his roots."

[Corlyss_D]

Surely you jest!

What's this fight about? Making the MAP available OTC instead of by prescription!

That's not a serious threat to the availability of the pill to women and I'm surprised you would claim that it is. This is a bogus issue.

[Ralph]

Which "pill" are you referring to? This has nothing to do with routine contraception but with the risk of an accidental pregnancy because of rape or, simply, surrendering to the passion of the evening. The post-intercourse pill must be taken soon after sex to avoid conception and obtaining an Rx is difficult for many women, especially younger ones without a regular M.D.

[Teresa B]

I see no reason why the morning-after pill should not become available OTC. If indeed the statistic is correct that it could prevent 80,000 abortions in New York alone per year, what would be the downside?

I'm pro-choice, but like almost everyone, I feel it's far better to prevent the unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

The moral position of never causing a fertilized egg to go unimplanted is extreme (and most of the time that's not even the mechanism with the MAP). We really should be morally outraged at all the women who have used IUD's in that case.

There is an uninterrupted continuum from fertilization to birth, and we must choose a somewhat arbitrary point at which we consider it morally wrong to terminate a pregnancy. (It isn't even a "pregnancy" until the embryo implants.) I would think if one believes a zygote to be the equivalent of a fully formed human, then that person would not use that form of contraception.

All the best, Teresa

[Ralph]

Leaders of both parties in New York are blasting Pataki for his totally unprincipled position. If he thinks he can get national GOP support by saying he'll sign a bill that excludes minors from OTC purchasing of this drug then he's truly taken leave of his senses. The Anti-Choice cohort accepts no compromises and takes no prisoners.

[Ralph]

From The New York Times:

August 2, 2005
Both Parties Attack Pataki's Stand on Morning-After Pill
By AL BAKER and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

ALBANY, Aug. 1 - Democrats and Republicans on Monday began a fierce attack on Gov. George E. Pataki's decision to veto a bill that would make the so-called morning-after pill available without a prescription and raised doubts about whether the legislation could be revived.

The criticism came a day after aides to Mr. Pataki said he would oppose the measure because it did not include any provisions that would prevent minors from having access to the drug. Mr. Pataki's aides said the governor would reconsider the measure if the Legislature made amendments to the bill that addressed his concerns.

But Mr. Pataki's critics inside and outside the State Legislature sharply questioned the governor's motives, noting his long support for reproductive rights and suggesting that he was altering his position to win favor with national conservatives as he prepares for a possible bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

In a statement, Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican majority leader in the State Senate, appeared to take a swipe at the reason the governor gave for opposing the measure, making a veiled reference to the fact that the state currently covers the cost of abortions and an abortion-inducing drug for low-income minors.

"The bill would have given women more options to prevent pregnancies and, as a result, would have prevented abortions," Mr. Bruno said. "I was surprised by the governor's reason for a veto, given that under existing law, minors already have access to a far worse alternative than taking a pill to prevent an unwanted pregnancy."

Democrats quickly sought to exploit the rift between Mr. Pataki and his fellow Republicans. "Joe Bruno is entirely correct," said Howard Wolfson, a Democratic strategist who is working for Naral Pro-Choice New York, a leading abortion-rights group. "In George Pataki's New York, a 17-year-old can obtain an abortion without restriction. But if that same 17-year-old tries to prevent that abortion by using emergency contraception, she will be turned away."

In the meantime, the leaders of Naral Pro-Choice New York unleashed a television advertising campaign attacking the governor in the crucially important presidential primary and caucus states of New Hampshire and Iowa, as well as in New York.

The advertisement - apparently intended to trip up the governor as he steps out on to the national stage - suggests that Mr. Pataki's refusal to support the morning-after pill legislation amounts to political opportunism, since he has long been a supporter of abortion rights.

Seeking to counter that assertion, the governor's aides stressed that he, in fact, supported the concept of making these drugs available. In addition, Mr. Pataki's aides said that his opposition to the legislation was consistent with earlier positions he had taken on abortion involving minors.

The aides noted, for instance, that any time New York State covers the cost of abortions or abortion-inducing drugs for minors it is does so with the direct involvement of the doctor or medical professional caring for the minor. By contrast, the bill the governor plans to veto does not require that level of medical supervision, the aides said.

The roiling debate over the issue is shaping up to be the real first test of how Mr. Pataki's record in New York will be viewed with the new national constituency he is trying to build now that he has decided to forgo a fourth term and to explore a possibly national bid.

In Albany, it is unclear how the Legislature will respond, although lawmakers most likely do not have the two-thirds votes necessary to override the governor in the Senate, where the bill passed by a handful of votes on June 22.

Complicating the issue in the Senate is the fact that Mr. Bruno, the Republican majority leader, went out on a limb politically to bring the measure to the floor for a vote, only to see the governor undercut him with a sharp public rebuke of the legislation. He may not want to expend that kind of political capital again given that most of his Republican colleagues oppose the measure.

In an interview, Senator Nicholas A. Spano, a moderate Republican who sponsored the bill, raised questions about whether the bill could be revived.

In particular, Mr. Spano questioned whether the changes Mr. Pataki was seeking would trouble Democrats who control the State Assembly, as well as leaders of Naral Pro-Choice New York and other abortion-rights groups, who have long argued that minors must have access to the drug in emergencies.

"Would those amendments be supported by Naral and the advocates, and would they be supported by the Assembly?" Mr. Spano said. "It all depends on what the specifics are, and I need to get those specifics before I can speculate on its success or failure."

In the statement, Mr. Bruno, too, left the future of the legislation in serious doubt, saying that the Senate would have to determine whether the governor's concerns could be addressed. In substance, the bill would have allowed pharmacists and registered nurses to dispense the pill to women or girls of any age who do not have prescriptions.

Proponents say it will help women get the pill early enough to be effective on weekends, when seeing a doctor can be difficult. They also contend that the drug may help prevent more than 80,000 abortions in New York each year.

But the measure has become enmeshed in the larger national debate over abortion. That is because the pill, while classified as a contraceptive, may also prevent a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in the uterus. As a result, anti-abortion forces refer to the drug as "an abortion pill," not just as contraception.

If Mr. Pataki was hoping to win over national conservatives with his stand, he may have to think again. Connie Mackey, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council, a prominent national conservative group, said the governor had not gone far enough in arguing that the bill's main flaw was that it made the drug available to minors.

Ms. Mackey noted that the "pro-life community" was opposed to the drug "because of what it does, and what is does is abort." Ms. Mackey added, "If he is a pro-lifer, he would recognize that."