Pro-abortion Democrats in control of the New York legislature tried to stop a pro-life group from conducting its annual Lobby for Life day this spring.
The New York Post reports New York State Right to Life reserved space at the state Capitol in Albany more than a year ago, but Democratic lawmakers revoked the reservation in February.
The move came shortly after state lawmakers passed one of the most radical pro-abortion laws in the country. The so-called Reproductive Health Act allows unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth in New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo celebrated the pro-abortion law by ordering state landmarks to be lit in pink.
This week, leaders of New York State Right to Life said Senate Democrats initially placed “unfair additional conditions” on their group’s May 1 reservation, and then followed up with an “outright eviction” on March 22. New York RTL has held its annual Lobby for Life day in May at the Capitol for more than a decade.
One of those conditions was to find a new legislative sponsor.
Here’s more from the report:
The legislative sponsor was a Republican — who lost reservation privileges when Democrats took over [in January].
“We were informed we could change venue…or find a majority conference sponsor,” [Christina Fadden, the organization’s chair,] said.
Weeks of emails and phone calls followed, but she got nowhere.
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Finally, Assemblyman Robin Schimminger (D-Buffalo) agreed to put in his name as the sponsor — but the space was already taken.
Fadden said they do not know of any other groups that have been evicted from the Capitol, and wondered if they were singled out because of their pro-life views.
Not long before the Post published its story Wednesday, Senate Democrats resolved the issue with the pro-life organization. According to the report, “late Tuesday,” the organization learned that the space that they reserved was available again.
“… on the brink of an article exposing the situation, the Sen Dems reversed course … and suddenly the space was available again to our new Assembly Majority sponsor,” New York RTL wrote on Facebook.
The pro-life organization suggested that the publicity may have been what prompted the change. They noted that Schimminger had been trying for five weeks to secure the reservation but “was refused.”
“NYSRTL welcomes being rightly restored to The Well [in the Capitol] as we had previously booked, duly following all the rules,” the organization said in a statement. “To have been evicted was a huge mistake in regards to respecting our democracy by Senate Democrats and we made every attempt to resolve this directly to no avail. This has caused quite a bit of difficulty for our people and it should’ve never been an issue we had to deal with.”
It also noted that The Well is a taxpayer-funded, public space.
The pro-life organization encouraged pro-lifers to join them at 10 a.m. May 1 at the state Capitol to stand up for the right to life for unborn babies. More details about the event are available on New York State Right to Life’s website.
