Nationwide Campaign To Create an Abortion Sanctuary Network Starts in New York
Nationwide Campaign To Create an Abortion Sanctuary Network Starts in New York
6/23/2022 by Carrie N. Baker
Women rally for reproductive rights in Terryville, N.Y., on May 14, 2022. (J. Conrad Williams Jr. / Newsday RM via Getty Images)
Faced with the likely end of Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights advocates are seeking to create a nationwide sanctuary network for abortion services by passing interlocking legislation in blue states to ensure every American can safely access legal abortion services. In May, New York Assemblymember Charles Lavine introduced the Geraldine Santoro Act to help women from states banning abortion to travel to New York and obtain abortion healthcare. “The Santoro Act is the first step toward creating a nationwide sanctuary network for women in need and the first-ever private-public partnership to build a war chest to ensure reproductive autonomy,” said Lavine when he introduced the bill.The bill is named after Geraldine Santoro, who died from an unsafe abortion in 1964. A police photograph of her dead body, published in Ms. magazine in 1973, became a symbol of the abortion rights movement in the United States.
The legislation would establish an office within the New York Department of Health that would create a nonprofit corporation to administer the program with a $15 million appropriation. The nonprofit would facilitate travel arrangements, lodging and medical appointments for women who need them, and pay the costs where eligible. The law encourages the nonprofit to enter into pacts with other states that enact similar laws so states can pool their resources, serve the greatest number of patients and use their funds in the most efficient manner. The goal is that patients “can be treated in the least disruptive and most compassionate manner, with the least amount of travel.”
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The Santoro Act was inspired by Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was leaked in early May. The opinion indicated that the Supreme Court is preparing to overturn the 49-year-old precedent Roe v. Wade, which recognized the constitutional right to abortion healthcare. If Roe is overturned, 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion, leaving over 33 million women of reproductive age without access to legal abortion healthcare in their own states and forcing them to travel long distances to receive this care.
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https://msmagazine.com/2022/06/23/abortion-sanctuary-network-new-york-geraldine-santoro-act/