Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman
on Wednesday took a large step toward making New York one of several
states to allow late-term abortions in cases where the mother’s health
is in jeopardy or the fetus suffers a fatal complication, relying on Supreme Court rulings he said overrode existing law.
In a new legal opinion, Mr. Schneiderman said the 1970 state law, which criminalizes abortion past 24 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is endangered, did not square with the later Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade and other cases.
“New
York law cannot criminalize what the federal Constitution protects, and
thus the Penal Law should be interpreted to be consistent with the
Constitution,” the opinion says.
While
the state law remains on the books, the opinion from Mr. Schneiderman, a
Democrat, now gives hospitals and clinics the legal grounding to
perform such abortions. Reproductive rights advocates say that no
providers currently offer such procedures in New York, so doctors have
to send women who need late-term abortions elsewhere — most often to
Colorado, where they are legal.
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Source: The New York Times
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