Syracuse, NY -- Catholic priests in Central New York might have a common theme in their homilies this weekend: getting their congregations engaged in a new fight against abortion.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse last week sent information to all of its parishes about the church’s statewide opposition to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan for what the church calls a radical abortion-expansion bill.
“We hope they will be talking about it this Sunday and beyond,” said Danielle Cummings, the diocese’s spokeswoman.
Cuomo hasn’t detailed the bill. But church officials fear it will include the provisions of a bill that a state senator has unsuccessfully proposed annually for six years.
That bill included making abortions legal through all nine months of pregnancy, allowing non-physicians to perform abortions, and potentially forcing hospitals to perform abortions or risk losing their state license.
“It’s remarkable, the points of this bill,” Cummings said.
The issue surfaced in Cuomo’s state of the state address Jan. 9. He proposed a “women’s equality act” that consisted of 10 points. One was to “protect a woman’s freedom of choice by enacting the reproductive health act.”
His 10 points also included strengthening laws against human trafficking, achieving equal pay between genders and ending pregnancy discrimination in the workplace.
Church officials contend the governor packaged the abortion proposal with those more popular ideas so state legislators would feel compelled to pass them all as one.
“This is all marketing,” said Kathleen Gallagher, director of pro-life advocacy for the New York State Catholic Conference.
“He’s repackaging it by making it look nice,” she said. “We would say that’s just holding all these other issues hostage. That’s just shameful.”
The governor’s press office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Cuomo, a practicing Catholic, said in an interview on YNN two weeks ago that he’s clashed with the church before, most notably over same-sex marriage.
“I don’t believe that abortion is ever the preferred option,” he said in the interview. “That’s a different discussion than who should make the decision and a woman’s right to choose, which I hold adamantly... The Church, I respect their opinion, I respect their rulings, it’s a very important institution in this state, to me personally. I’m happy when we agree, I wish we could agree on everything. That’s not the way the world works.”
The Catholic Conference sent a three-page “memorandum of opposition” to state legislators two weeks ago, spelling out the problems with the abortion bill. The issue is displayed on the Syracuse diocese’s web site and on its Facebook page.
Dr. Anthony Oliva, a general surgeon in Syracuse, said he’s worried about the bill’s potential harm.
“I certainly wouldn’t want a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant doing surgical procedures on patients,” said Oliva, president of the Blessed Marianne Cope Guild of the Catholic Medical Association.
He’s also worried it would force St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center to perform abortions. The bill would elevate abortions to the level of a fundamental right and prohibit the state from discriminating against that right at any of its facilities.
“So if the state provides an operating certificate to a hospital that refuses to allow abortions, that could be construed as discriminating,” Gallagher said. “We see it as a real threat to religious institutions.”
St. Joseph’s doesn’t perform abortions, but could be compelled to under the reproductive health act, Oliva said.
“It could force them to go against their conscience or lose their license,” said Oliva, who works at St. Joseph’s but was not speaking for the hospital.
Every year since 2007, state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, has proposed the reproductive health act as a way of codifying state law in case the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturns its landmark abortion decision in Roe v. Wade.
The bill has never made it out of the senate.
A spokesman for Stewart-Cousins could not be reached for comment.
State law does not allow an abortion past six months of pregnancy unless it’s to save the mother’s life. The law requires abortions to be performed by a duly-licensed physician. Under Stewart-Cousins’ bill, abortions would be allowed beyond six months of pregnancy and would allow a “qualified practitioner” to perform them.
The bill said a pregnant woman has a fundamental right to an abortion even after six months when it’s necessary to preserve the mother’s life or health, or if the fetus is not “viable,” or likely to survive outside the womb without extraordinary medical measures.
The bill included language to prevent late-term abortions of viable fetuses unless the mother’s health is at risk. And it called for repealing five abortion-related crimes and for moving the abortion law from the state's penal code to the health code.
The Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops across the state, cites New York’s ranking as the state with the highest abortion rate in the country, with 33 percent of pregnancies ending in abortions.
At least four bishops across the state have spoken out publicly against the governor’s proposal.
Contact John O’Brien at email@example.com or 315-470-2187.