New York state has enacted strong new legal protections for abortion rights. The new law, signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, safeguards rights laid out in Roe v. Wade and other court rulings, including a provision permitting late-term abortions when a woman's health is endangered, The Associated Press reports. The state's previous law, which had been on the books for nearly 50 years, only permitted abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy if a woman's life was at risk.

Governor Cuomo celebrated the passing of the bill in the Democrat-led Senate and Assembly on Tuesday, which happened to be the 46th anniversary of the Roe decision. "In the face of a federal government intent on rolling back Roe v. Wade and women's reproductive rights, I promised that we would enact this critical legislation within the first 30 days of the new session — and we got it done," Cuomo said in a statement. He directed state landmarks like the spire of One World Trade Center to be lit up in pink to "shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow."

"We're saying here in New York, women's lives matter. We're saying here in New York, women's decisions matter," Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said.

Sarah Weddington, the Texas attorney who successfully argued Roe before Supreme Court, was at Cuomo's side when he signed the Reproductive Health Act into law.

"Thank you for what you've done for women," Weddington told the governor, lawmakers and advocates.

The Reproductive Health Act replaces a 1970 state abortion law that was passed three years before Roe legalized abortion nationwide.

Hillary Clinton, N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo discuss abortion rights

The new law moves the section of state law dealing with abortion from the penal code to health statutes. It also authorizes midwives and physician assistants to perform some abortions, CBS New York reports.

Abortion rights supporters pushed for years to update the law. When Democrats gained control of the state Senate this year, the act became easier to pass in both chambers. Supporters said the election of President Donald Trump and the nomination of conservative justices helped galvanize efforts to pass this law.

Republicans who opposed the bill offered proposals to create new legal penalties for harming pregnant women. Some critics argued the bill could make it harder for prosecutors to bring charges when a woman is assaulted and loses her pregnancy, the AP reports, although Democrats disputed that. Some opponents also predicted the bill will lead to more late-term abortions.

According to the New York State Department of Health, 285,127 induced abortions occurred in the state between 2012 and 2014. The average number of live births for the same three years was 237,499. Nationwide, the vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester.

The AP reports nine other states including California, Washington and Oregon have also put protections for abortion rights in their state statutes, to preserve legal access in those states if Roe is overturned.

Editor's note: The headline on this story has been changed to more accurately describe the new law.</s>New York legislators passed a bill on Tuesday granting women the affirmative right to abortions under the state’s public-health law, a move that symbolically falls on the 46th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The push comes partly as a reaction to the confirmation last October of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Abortion opponents want Justice Kavanaugh at some point to provide the decisive vote striking down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to early-term abortions.

...</s>On Tuesday, the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the New York state legislature approved a piece of abortion rights legislation that was years in the making. Among other changes, New York's Reproductive Health Act protects abortion rights in the state, and some of its proponents believe it could set an example for the rest of the country.

"It really sets a marker, and makes clear that New York state law explicitly and expressly protects reproductive rights, and recognizes that it is a fundamental right for people to be able to make their own reproductive decisions, including to decide to have an abortion," Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, tells Bustle.

Miller explains that up until this bill's success, New York didn't legislate abortion like a health care service. Instead, a 1970 state law which legalized abortion up to 24 weeks — and afterward, if the woman's life was in danger — treated the procedure like an exception to a crime. The RHA would take abortion out of the state's penal code all together, and instead have it governed under the New York's public health law.

Additionally, the bill would allow for abortions after 24 weeks if the woman's health is in danger, or if the fetus is not viable. Access would no longer hinge solely on whether the woman could die if she carried the pregnancy to term.

Miller says that such protections are crucial given the "incredibly hostile Supreme Court we’re facing, the Trump-Pence administration's relentless attacks against reproductive health care, and the fact that at least half of the states are considered hostile to reproductive freedom."

The law has been in the works for nearly a decade, according to multiple reports, and has long passed in New York's house of representatives, where the majority of legislators are Democrats. But until recently, a Republican majority state senate has blocked the bill from moving forward. When Democrats gained control of the senate after last year's midterms, though, that was expected to rapidly change. And it did.

Some critics — and even some supporters — have been quick to point out that the bill, while progressive, is not perfect. Although it will expand access to late term abortions, ensuring that women whose health, not just life, are in danger may legally obtain the procedure, it does not protect women who may electively opt to end their pregnancies after 24 weeks. This may still push some women to travel out of state in the event that they need or want to pursue an abortion that won't be permitted under state law. This was the case in an instance covered in depth several years ago, where a woman traveled all the way to Colorado to receive care.

"A law that governs abortion by examining a woman’s reasons for having one carries an implicit suggestion that there are objectively correct choices in pregnancy, choices that can be ascertained and judged by the body politic," New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino wrote in a piece discussing the legislation, as well as reexamining the Colorado case, earlier this week.

In speaking to Bustle, Miller acknowledges that there is likely still more work to be done. Even so, she believes the law will send a message about abortion access nationally.

"That doesn’t mean our work is done," she says. "We will continue to look for the ways in which our laws would [improve] the ability for people to make these critical fundamental decision in their lives, and to be able to access the care that they need to do so."</s>New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Tuesday night expanding abortion access and codifying a woman’s right to abort under state law.

Cuomo, a Democrat, signed the Reproductive Health Act on the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making good on his promise to add abortion protections to the state constitution, according to the New York Post.

Roe v. Wade gave women the constitutional right to an abortion under the 14th Amendment on Jan. 22, 1973. The ruling extended the right to abort up to the point of fetal “viability,” a slippery term that continues to foster debate as neonatal care advances.

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The bill codified a woman’s right to abort under state law and removes abortion from New York’s criminal code.

The bill will also allow women to have abortions after 24 weeks in cases where “there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health,” according to the legislation. Nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants and qualified health care professionals can provide abortions under the legislation.

The legislation “updates New York’s abortion statues to address constitutional flaws in our laws and recognize a woman’s fundamental right to access safe, legal abortion,” the bill states.

Cuomo is also looking to pass a bill requiring insurance companies to provide free contraceptive care, according to The New York Times.

Women seeking abortions in the state do not face any major restrictions like waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or public funding limitations, according to a May 2018 Guttmacher Institute report.

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Cuomo also vowed in early January to reject a budget that doesn’t include expanded abortion access.

Seventy-five percent of Americans support significant abortion restrictions and say abortion should not be legal after a woman is three months pregnant, according to a Jan. 15 Marist poll. Nearly 60 percent of Americans support banning abortion after 20 weeks except to save the life of the mother, according to the poll.

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We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A re-write of New York abortion laws had been held up by Republicans for more than a decade.

On Tuesday, the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Senate Democrats passed the Reproductive Health Act, 38-24. Gov. Andrew Cuomo hoped to sign the bill later in the evening, CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported.

Critics call the legislation a radical over-reach that benefits people who harm pregnant women.

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All the power in Albany is now in the hands of Democrats and they quickly moved to pass an abortion rights bill.

“We’re saying here in New York, women’s lives matter. We’re saying here in New York, women’s decisions matter,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said.

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New York legalized abortion in 1970, three years before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Supporters say almost 50 years later, the Empire State has simply moved to codify abortion rights, with Cuomo often pointing to new members of the high court.

“Kavanaugh is going to reverse Roe v. Wade, I have no doubt,” the governor said.

But critics say the Reproductive Health Act goes beyond codifying — to expanding.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan spoke about it Tuesday on his radio show.

“Any, any, any limit on the unfettered, unquestioned absolute right to abortion, they want none of it,” Dolan said.

MORE: Cuomo Pushing To Add Abortion Rights To NY Constitution

Provisions in the bill include dropping most restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks, allowing midwives and nurse practitioners to perform abortions and ending criminal charges for harming children in the womb.

Livia Abreu of the Bronx lost her baby in a 2018 domestic violence attack. Charges against her ex-boyfriend, Oscar Alvarez, include abortion in the first degree.

“The passing of RHA will exonerate him from those charges. I cannot imagine living in a world where harming or killing an unborn child is not a crime,” Abreu said.

Democrats say voters put them in control to pass progressive legislation — and the Reproductive Health Act is one of the first on a long list of bills Republicans can no longer stop.</s>Women in New York State now have the right to an abortion under the state's public health law.

The Reproductive Health Act passed the senate yesterday by a vote of 38 to 24.

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed it into law last night on the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

Local Western New York attorney, Cheryl Meyers Buth, explains that the bill moves abortion, which had previously been regulated under the penal law, under the public health law. "It gives women the right to abortions in the last trimester if their life is in danger or if the fetus is deemed unviable."</s>ALBANY - The state Legislature on Tuesday afternoon will pass a long-stalled bill that will strengthen abortion rights in New York.

The Reproductive Health Act is then expected to be signed into law later Tuesday at the state Capitol by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has pushed its passage for years.

“New Yorkers have won," the group #VoteProChoice said in a statement.

With Roe v. Wade potentially threatened in the Supreme Court, "it is critical that the New York legislature is finally passing the Reproductive Health Act after 12 years of ridiculous partisan power plays that put real people’s lives at risk."

The vote Tuesday comes on the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade court case in 1973.

In addition to the abortion bill, the Democratic-controlled Legislature will also pass the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, which will require insurers to cover contraception for patients.

They will also pass the "boss bill," which would ban employers from discriminating against employees over their reproductive health-care decisions.

Here's how abortion laws in New York will change upon Cuomo's signature:

New York legalized abortion three years prior to the landmark Roe v. Wade case, but New York still kept abortion in his criminal code, making it a felony to perform late-term abortions.

The law defined homicide as "conduct which causes the death of a person or an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than 24 weeks."

The Reproductive Health Act strips abortions from the penal code, and adds the following language:

"The legislature finds that comprehensive reproductive health care is a fundamental component of every individual's health, privacy and equality. "Therefore, it is the policy of the state that: "Every individual has the fundamental right to choose or refuse contraception or sterilization. Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to have an abortion, pursuant to this article."

Cuomo wants to go even further, saying earlier this month that abortion rights should be added to the state constitution.

"We'll pass it next year, we'll put it on the ballot, we'll write it into the constitution and we'll be able to say we protected women's rights in a way no one else has before," Cuomo said Jan. 7.

The new law would allow a licensed "health-care practitioner" acting under their scope of practice to perform an abortion when:

So the measure would make late-term abortions legal at the discretion of a health-care practitioner based on the viability of the fetus or if the woman's life or health is in jeopardy.

And the act would codify Roe v. Wade protections into state law if it were to be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, said the act is critical to protecting the abortion rights of the New Yorkers.

"New Yorkers deserve to have safe and secure access to abortion care so they can make their own decisions about their reproductive lives," she said.

More: Andrew Cuomo wants to make abortion a constitutional right in New York

More: Up next for New York Democrats: Abortion rights, tax cap, teacher evaluations

New Yorker for Constitutional Freedoms, a conservative group based in Spencerport, Monroe County, has opposed the bill.

The measure long languished in the Republican-controlled Senate as it passed repeatedly in the Democratic-led Assembly.

But now with Democrats in the control of both houses of the Legislature, the Reproductive Health Act is set for passage.

The conservative group said the act would repeal legal protections for a fetus after 20 weeks.

The group said it "believes that the right of every born-alive infant to receive medical care is an issue that all political parties and all sides of the abortion debate should be able to agree upon."

It also said that by repealing abortions from the criminal code, it would limit prosecutors from applying criminal charges in the cases of so-called forced abortions, which can occur during domestic violence cases when a woman loses a child during pregnancy.

Another concern is letting abortions be conducted by health-care professionals other than physicians, with the group saying, "We believe it would place women’s health in jeopardy to allow non-physicians to perform abortions."

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More: New York state budget: What you need to know</s>On the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that secured the right to abortion, the nationwide picture could not look grimmer. That’s what makes Tuesday’s victory in New York, which protected and expanded abortion rights in the state through the Reproductive Health Act, so important.

Across the country, anti-abortion politicians have been eroding abortion rights in state after state. Since 2011, they have quietly passed more than 400 restrictions, creating a web of barriers to safe, respectful, and affordable abortion care. These politically motivated laws force doctors to lie to patients; require multiple, medically unnecessary appointments; and impose far more onerous restrictions on abortion providers than other health care providers, causing clinics to shut down.

Emboldened by the prospect that the Supreme Court might eviscerate or overturn Roe, some states are now trying to ban abortion outright. Take Kentucky, where we represent the sole remaining clinic in the state. Just this month, Kentucky politicians introduced a bill that would ban abortion before most women even know they’re pregnant. And Kentucky isn’t alone — legislators in many other states have introduced similar bills.

But as threats to legal abortion increase, we are championing policies that safeguard the ability of women to make our own decisions. Passage on Tuesday of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), along with two other bills expanding contraceptive coverage and protecting employees’ reproductive decisions, makes New York the first of several states — including possibly New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont — to proactively protect abortion rights and access to reproductive care in the coming year.

With the RHA, the protections of Roe will finally be part of New York state law. This reform is critically necessary in order to preserve New Yorkers’ access to abortion if Roe falls or is severely weakened, and it also sends a message to policy-makers nationwide that we shouldn’t play politics with women’s health care.

Many people may assume that abortion rights were already well protected in New York — a solidly progressive state. But actually, New York’s law governing abortion was enacted before Roe in 1970. While it was cutting-edge at the time — New York was one of the first states to legalize abortion — it hasn’t been reformed since, making it woefully out of date and out of step with today’s medical realities and constitutional requirements.

The RHA recognizes abortion as a fundamental right and fixes several flaws in New York’s outdated abortion law. It helps ensure that women can get the health care they need throughout their pregnancy, including when their health is at risk or the fetus is not viable — in line with the protections of Roe. It takes abortion out of the criminal code and puts it where women’s health belongs, in the public health law. And it acknowledges that the medical field has changed dramatically in the past 50 years by making it clear that qualified health care professionals, like nurse practitioners and physician assistants, can provide abortion care that is within their training and scope of practice, rather than limiting the practice to licensed physicians.

The RHA, for which the New York Civil Liberties Union and its coalition partners have fought for more than a decade, will make New York a safe haven for women from New York and all over the country — a place where abortion is available and regulated according to best medical practice. It will make health care more accessible to low-income and rural New Yorkers and ensure that patients — not politicians — are able to make the informed health care decisions that are best for them and their families.

But access to abortion should not depend on where you live. The RHA should send a message to lawmakers throughout the country — that the time to protect reproductive freedom is now.</s>The New York Senate on Tuesday afternoon passed a bill that includes the most significant expansion of abortion rights in the state in almost 50 years.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 38-24 to pass the Reproductive Health Act on the 46th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that states can’t ban abortion.

The state Assembly is expected to pass the bill later Tuesday, delivering it to Gov. Andrew Cuomo who plans to sign the historic measure into law tonight.

The new law updates an abortion rights bill that the New York Legislature passed in 1970, three years before the Roe v. Wade decision.

The updated state law gives women the right to an abortion after 24 weeks if a fetus is no longer viable, or if a woman’s life or health is at risk. Abortion also would be regulated in New York under public health law, instead of the existing penal law.

The changes bring New York’s law into line with the rights already guaranteed on the federal level under Roe v. Wade.

Versions of the Reproductive Health Act passed the state Assembly over the past decade, only to be blocked in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Democrats made the Reproductive Health Act a priority for this year’s legislative session after winning one-party rule in Albany in the November election. Democrats now control 39 of the Senate’s 63 seats.

Before the votes, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told reporters why they believe it’s important to update New York’s law: If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it would likely be left to individual state laws to regulate abortion.

“We have a president who has made it very clear he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Stewart-Cousins said. “Today, here in New York, we are saying ‘no.’ Not here in New York.”

The Senate also passed bills Tuesday that prohibit employers from accessing an employee’s personal information about reproductive health, and require health insurers to provide cost-free contraceptive coverage, including emergency contraception.

Historic NY abortion vote: How law will change, what it means for women</s>New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law new measures expanding abortion rights in the state on Tuesday, the 46th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The Reproductive Health Act — which was signed by the governor late Tuesday night after passing in the Senate and Assembly — establishes the right of all women seeking abortion care to access the procedure without restriction until 24 weeks of pregnancy, WNYC reported.

The law also protects the right to receive an abortion after 24 weeks if the life or health of a woman is at risk, or the fetus is not viable.

The new law would standardize constitutional abortion protections in New York if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned in the future.

“This is a major victory for women and families in New York, and sends a powerful message across the country reaffirming a basic truth: Every woman deserves the fundamental right to choose if, when, and how to grow her family,” NARAL Pro-Choice America Vice President Adrienne Kimmell said in a statement obtained by .

In recent years, reproductive rights advocates nationwide have mobilized around state-level abortion protections, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization committed to sexual and reproductive rights and health. The report further outlines ways that abortion rights groups and lawmakers can safeguard state-level access to the procedure.

“We celebrate today’s victory knowing that it would never have been possible without the tireless work of tenacious volunteers and countless activists, as well as the persistence of leaders in the state government,” NARAL New York Action Council Director Hannah Smolar said in the statement.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins — the first woman to lead the New York Senate — said the bill was important at a time when abortion rights are precarious. “That moment where they actually, on a national level, might reverse women’s rights is here,” she said, according to WNYC. “Today, in New York, we are saying no.”
New York passes the Reproductive Health Act, which allows abortion rights.