Advocates on LI protest possible overturn of Roe

Hundreds of people braved a cold, driving rain Saturday in Mineola and Central Islip to express outrage over a draft U.S. Supreme Court decision that would allow states to outlaw abortion.

"An abortion ban does not stop abortions," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in front of the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola. "But it will stop safe abortions.”

Demonstrators were reacting to a leaked draft ruling from February in which a Supreme Court majority voted to reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to an abortion. The decision is not final; a final ruling is expected in the next several weeks.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) looked out at the 150 people in Mineola, many with clothes soaked from the rain, and said, “This shows that no rain or anything else is going to stop us until we win this fight, preserve the right to choose, preserve women’s health care."

Assemb. Gina Sillitti (D-Manorhaven) said, “This is not about abortion. This is about controlling women. It's about telling women what they can and can’t do with their bodies.”

New York codified parts of Roe v. Wade into law in 2019. But State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-North Hills), whose office organized Saturday's Mineola rally, said “people have to wake up and understand that nothing is for sure in this country.”

Republicans in the State Senate had for years blocked codifying the ruling into law, and that codification could be reversed, she said.

James, who supports adding the right to an abortion to the state constitution, urged demonstrators first in Mineola and later in Central Islip to elect candidates who favor abortion rights.

James said that pre-Roe, many women died in illegal abortion clinics or were forced to have children they didn't want. Women of color and poor women would especially be affected by abortion bans, she said.

“My concern is about all of the women who will go underground, who will be stuck in [anti-abortion] states, who unfortunately will not have the funds and resources to travel,” she said in Mineola. “Those women whose destinies will be controlled by right wing ideologues will be trapped."

James urged the enactment of state legislation that would help pay for women to travel from anti-abortion states to New York to have abortions.

Shaina Silverman, 23, of Huntington, said after the Mineola rally that she and others in states like New York with strong abortion protections would be willing to “harbor” women from anti-abortion states seeking the procedure.

"It’s important for us with the privilege to protect it for other people," she said.

Pastor Joni Lupis of Wading River, president of March for Life New York, which is planning a June 4 anti-abortion rally in Hauppauge, said by phone that, with a ban on abortion in New York unlikely, a focus of groups like hers will be “to educate the public on the horrors of abortion” and promote adoption.

Lupis said even though abortion-rights advocates emphasize the right to choose, “it’s not your choice to kill another living being.”

There have been calls for protests in favor of abortion rights at churches nationwide in the past week. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison said in a statement that police have “increased patrol checks around churches and other offices," although he said “there is currently no specific threat in Suffolk County.” The NYPD has increased church patrols as well.

At the U.S. District Court building in Central Islip, close to 150 rallygoers were on hand, some holding signs with slogans such as "Stop the war on women" and "Nobody tells my mom or sisters what to do," and shouting "my body, my choice."

Judy Black, 75, of Shoreham, said in an interview that a high school friend who died at age 17 after getting pregnant likely would have survived if abortion had been legal.

“You figure she would have had a lifetime ahead of her, children ahead, and that was taken away by the fact that there wasn’t legal abortion at the time,” Black said.

Black fears that reversing Roe v. Wade would lead to rights such as same-sex marriage and other women’s rights being “stripped away one-by-one-by-one-by-one.”

Legal experts have said that the language of the draft opinion indicates that constitutional rights to same-sex marriage and contraception also could be in danger.

Suffolk County Legis. Bridget Fleming (D-Noyac) urged rallygoers to protect the reproductive rights that their mothers and grandmothers fought for, decades earlier.

“It doesn’t matter what circumstances a woman is in when she has to make a terrible decision about whether or not to access the medical care that is abortion," she said. "What matters is that she has a right which is enshrined in our constitution to make that decision with her own conscience, with her family, with her spiritual guide and with her medical providers."