We hope you’ve heard the good news that there is no abortion expansion in the 2019 New York State Budget that was passed last week.
So thank you all for your prayers, your letters and phone calls to the senators, and the emails that you sent. Thank you especially to the prolifers of North Rockland who responded to our targeted, special alert to contact prolife Senator Larkin.
Unfortunately, abortion expansion may come up again as a regular bill during the legislative session, which ends in June. If so, we’ll let you know.
But for now, just enjoy Easter and Passover Week and know that you spoke up when it counted! Great work!!
And if you have a moment, please email Senate Majority Leader Flanagan and Sen. Larkin and just tell them thank you for their efforts to halt the expansion of abortion in New York.
Sen. William Larkin: larkin@nysenate.gov
Sen. John J. Flanagan: flanagan@nysenate.gov
Abortion Expansion Threat This Week
The final NYS budget is due on April 1, and as we approach that date the abortion expansion proposal is still a horrible possibility.
Contained in the budget are plans to radically modify NYS law. The changes would allow abortions to be performed for all 9 months of pregnancy, non-doctors could be empowered to perform abortions, and babies born alive after an abortion could be left to die of neglect and starvation.
Pro-abortion forces have been trying to expand abortion in New York for years. Meeting failure, they’re working around the normal legislative process by trying to push their plans through in the New York budget.
Please contact your state senator immediately. The message: Please oppose all abortion expansion proposals (S.7511) in Gov. Cuomo’s budget bill.
You can send a prepared email from: https://www.votervoice.net/BroadcastLinks/Ku1CPu8k_w8CpWjbCu4UFg
Winter 40 Days for Life Campaign Comes to an End
On Palm Sunday — Day 40 of the 40 Days for Life campaign — prolifers gathered to officially close the winter vigil with a recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the rosary. The prayer site is on Perlman Drive in Spring Valley, outside the Pascack Plaza Mall where Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has an office.
40 Days for Life is an international program of prayer, fasting and public outreach to end abortion. It is held twice a year, and a team of local volunteers commits to a round-the-clock 40 Day prayer vigil. It was estimated that nearly 500 unborn children around the world at the 354 locations were the vigil took place were saved during the past 40 days as their mothers rejected abortion and chose life.
A Great Day for the Irish — and for Celebrating Life
Marching under the “Respect Life” banner, a coalition of prolife citizens from Rockland and Orange County celebrated life at the Ancient Order of Hibernians St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Pearl River. It was a classic March 17, not a cloud in the sky and the cold wind whipping the flags as we marched along. Respect Life marched right behind the Orange County AOH Pipe and Drum Band, and their great repertoire of Irish music from beginning to end only added to our spirit. A great day!!
Appalling Abortion Bill in NY State Budget
Yes, in the state budget!!! The pro-abortion forces here in New York never rest. Now here’s their latest ploy: to put all their abortion priorities into the Fiscal Year 2019 Executive Budget and push them through with the rest of the finance-related bills before April 1.
Attached to Gov. Cuomo’s budget this year is a “Women’s Agenda” bill (S.7511/A.9511) that will actually enable and promote abortion.
Part A of this bill requires health insurance to provide “contraception” coverage that includes abortion-causing drugs.
Part B expands late-term abortion. It does this by removing all references to abortion from penal law. That means abortion would no longer be a crime. In other words, abortion would not be illegal for any reason at any time during a pregnancy — including into the ninth month and up to the moment of birth.
In addition, stripping abortion from New York’s Penal Law under Part B would mean that anyone who forced a pregnant woman to abort or attacked her violently to cause an abortion could not be charged of a crime against the baby.
Part B would also repeal Public Health Law Section 4164, which gives full legal protection to an a child who somehow manages to survive an abortion, and requires a second doctor to be present during a late-term abortion to give medical care to any such child. Part B would allow the abortionist to allow the child to die of neglect – and that would be infanticide.
Part B could also empower non-doctors to perform abortions. Under Part B, language would be removed that now says only a “duly licensed physician” may perform abortions in New York. With that language gone, the State Education Department bureaucrats would have the authority to decide who may perform an abortion. It’s likely abortion advocates would pressure them to allow abortions by nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives, and a broad range of non-physicians – all to broaden the accessibility to abortion
Part B and the insurance mandate requiring abortion-causing drugs must be removed from the New York State budget. Those sections of the “Women’s Agenda” that have merit, such as those dealing with pregnancy discrimination and human trafficking, should be voted on as separate bills in the regular legislative process.
Please contact your legislators in Albany and ask them to oppose Governor Cuomo’s abortion expanding budget bill.
More information:
Here’s the text of the Women’s Agenda (S.7511/A.9511) in the FY2019 New York State Executive Budget.
The New York State Catholic Conference Memo of Opposition
New York State Right to Life Committee Statement of Opposition
Will Gov. Andrew Cuomo Get His Abortion Legislation Passed? (New York Families)
Commentary: Proposed Budget’s Changes to Abortion Law Are Extreme (TimesUnion, 3/22/18)
March for Life 2018 Video
You’ll see the Rockland Right to Life banner passing before the Supreme Court at around 3:30 on the timeline.
Senate Rejects 20-Week Abortion Ban
Jan. 29 — Tonight the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks — the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act — by a vote of 51-46. The bill had passed in the House of Representatives on Jan. 19, the day of the March for Life in Washington. Pres.Trump had said he would sign the bill into law if it came to his desk.
The vote was mainly along party lines, with Democrats voting against it and Republicans voting for it. However, two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against the bill, and three Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, and Joe Donnelly of Indiana voted for it.
A recent Marist poll showed that two-thirds of Americans support a 20-week ban on abortion.
This was lost on our two senators for New York, Chuck Schumer (D) and Kirsten Gellibrand (D),who voted against this prolife legislation. They joined our representative in the House, Nita Lowey (D), who voted down the bill last Friday. Three out of three fail again to protect the mosts vulnerable! Very sad!
Fios News Coverage: ‘Prolife Rockland Residents Protest Planned Parenthood’
Here’s the link to the video. Click here.
Jan. 22 — Verizon FIOS News — Lower Hudson Valley sent out a crew to cover the gathering of prolife supporters in Spring Valley, who gathered outside Planned Parenthood on Perlman Drive to pray. It was on Jan. 22, the true anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in 1973 to legalize abortion in America. (The March for Life this year was on Friday, Jan. 19).
Good for FIOS! Unlike the Journal News/USA Today who didn’t print a word about any March for Life events, but had plenty to say about the Women’s March that took place the next day. And, as usual, the three major TV networks combined — CBS, ABC, and NBC– had less than three minutes of coverage of the March. CBS had nothing at all.
Well, it’s nice to know that balanced journalism is still alive somewhere around here — at local FIOS news.
(update 1/28/18) The Journal News (Lo-Hud) has since published an article with extensive remarks from five marchers, March for Life 2018: 5 People Share Their Vision of the Future. Print story appeared 1/27/18; online 1/26/18.
Rose Mass Celebrated at St. Gregory’s
Pastor of St. Gregory Barbarigo Church Fr. Joseph LaMorte speaks to the eighth graders of Rockland’s Catholic elementary schools at the Rose Mass for Life.
Jan 19 — The Rockland Region of Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of New York hosted the annual eighth-grade Rose Mass for Life on Friday, Jan. 19, at St. Gregory Barbarigo Church in Garnerville. It was attended by students from Sacred Heart School in Suffern, St. Anthony’s School in Nanuet, St. Margaret of Antioch School in Pearl River, St. Paul School in Valley Cottage, and St. Gregory’s School.
The mass is held each year to coincide with the March for Life in Washington, D.C. The sacredness God’s gift of life is symbolized by the long-stemmed red roses, which the students bring to decorate the sanctuary.
The homily was delivered by Rev. Joseph P. Lamorte, pastor of St. Gregory’s. He told the eighth graders that they were the “prolife generation,” and he was full of hope that when they were adults, their efforts to overturn the legalization of abortion would be their great gift to society.
Fr. Lamorte concelebrated the mass with pastors Rev. Matthew Furey (Sacred Heart Church), Rev. Joseph Deponai (St. Anthony’s Church), Rev. Eric Raaser (St. Margaret’s Church) asst. pastor Roman Palecko (St. Paul and St. Ann Parish), and pastor Rev. William Cosgrove (St. Augustine’s Church in New City).
Music was provided by the Barbarigo Student Chorus, led by director David Christian Azarow.
Attending the mass were several adult prolife supporters from around the county who were unable to attend the March for Life in Washington.
Concelebrating the Rose Mass for Life were (left to right): Fr. Bill Cosgrove, Fr. Roman Palecko, Fr. Matthew Furey, Fr. Joseph LaMorte, Fr. Jerry Deponai, and Fr. Eric Raaser
We March to End Abortion. And We Will.
Jan. 19 — The marchers from Rockland County reach the end of the March for Life 2018 — the U.S. Supreme Court where the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal across America on Jan. 22, 1973. Thousands of marchers have been coming to Washington, D.C, for the March, held on or around that date for the past 45 years, to stand up for life.
We are filled with pride and gratitude for this year’s group from Rockland and the students from Albertus Magnus who have kept the faith and traveled to Washington to represent us all. We honor their commitment, their passion, and their unshakeable faith that one day the legal protection of the unborn will be restored.
(update 1/29/18) Two Rocklanders, Joanne Clemente and Carolyn Pappalardo, speak at length about the March in this Journal News article here.
The weather this year was glorious. And the speakers at the Rally for Life included Pres. Donald Trump, the first sitting president to deliver an address live to the March for Life. “Under my administration, we will always defend the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to life,” Trump said, and he announced he had proposed new federal rules — and an enforcement office — to protect the conscience rights of doctors, nurses, and other health professionals who object to performing abortions. Trump’s full speech is here.
Other speakers included V.P. Mike Pence, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Sister of Life Bethany Madonna.
On this day the House of Representatives passed the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act to protect babies who are born alive during failed abortions. The vote, went along party lines, but six prolife Democrats voted for this bill resulting in a 241-183 victory for the unborn. Unfortunately, Rockland’s representative in the House, Nita Lowey, voted against this humane and eminently sensible legislation.
More photos of Rocklanders at the March for Life appear below, and we hope to post more over the next few days. Please check back. The photos are by Francis Wong. Please click on a photo to enlarge it, and then scroll through the slide show.
ROCKLAND RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE 