Editorial

New Assembly Speaker Boosts Women’s Rights

Posted

After two years of stalemate, the state Assembly, under new Speaker Carl Heastie, has begun to pass the nine non-abortion-related points of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 10-point Women’s Equality Act.

This bodes well for Bronxite Heastie’s leadership, and it’s a rare bright spot in yet another year of turmoil, accusations, arrests and scandal in Albany.

Finally, with the Republican-controlled state Senate already on board with the nine measures, Democrats in the Assembly are signing on too, allowing a moment of bipartisan common sense to prevail in the important area of women’s rights.

Cuomo’s proposal, released in 2013, had nine worthy points aimed at protecting women and improving their lives. However, the 10th point, which calls for expanding New York’s already ludicrously easy access to abortion, was so controversial that it virtually guaranteed the 10-point plank would go nowhere in the Senate.

Although he initially resisted calls to split the act into 10 separate bills, the governor eventually did so, saying that getting nine out of 10 measures passed was better than getting none of them passed.

That cleared the way for the state Senate to pass the nine non-abortion points in 2013, 2014 and as the very first bills it took up in 2015. The Assembly, however, under former Speaker Sheldon Silver, continued to pass only the original 10-point single bill, because of the adamant refusal by some members of his Democratic conference to abandon the abortion plank.

But with Heastie’s ascendancy after Silver’s January arrest on federal corruption charges, the change has been dramatic. Heeding the calls of an increasingly vocal contingent of female members—notably Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, a Scarsdale Democrat who wanted action on an anti-human trafficking plank—Heastie allowed the women’s rights bills to come up individually for votes.

Because of that, the Assembly has so far passed stand-alone bills related to preventing sexual harassment in the workplace, protecting victims of human trafficking, equal pay for women, accommodations for pregnant women in the workplace, and allowing victims of domestic violence a safer means of obtaining orders of protection.

The New York State Catholic Conference supported all of these measures, and we do, too. That’s why we salute Speaker Heastie for placing women ahead of abortion politics and backing these important bills already passed by the Senate and supported by the governor.

To be sure, the Assembly has also passed the abortion expansion bill, but the Senate has not taken up that one and is not likely to do so.

As we have said before, the abortion bill should stand or fall on its own, and women should not be held hostage to a political agenda, especially when New York is already the abortion capital of the nation.

It’s worth noting here that Pope Francis has spoken much on the dignity of women during his papacy. On specific issues, he’s been forceful in speaking out against human trafficking, most recently on Feb. 8, when he called on governments around the world to remove this “shameful wound” which has no place in “civil society.”

Just two weeks ago, during his weekly general audience, he also came out strongly for “the right to equal pay for equal work,” calling the wage disparity between men and women in the workplace “a pure scandal.”

We’re grateful for the pope’s positions. And we’re gratified too that New York State, also recognizing the dignity and rights of women, is prepared to address some distressing, longstanding issues.