Wednesday, May 4, 2022

New York Welcomes Healthcare Refugees

Being a New Yorker, I am proud to say that we stand by our stated values.  I'm particularly pleased that some of our politicians have made public statements that women seeking abortions are welcome to travel to this state, where abortion services are protected by law.  Manhattan borough president Mark Levine made this policy explicit:

Mr Levine also provided information regarding payment assistance and travel assistance for patients traveling to New York for abortion services. He also reiterated that fact that abortion will remain legal in New York even if Roe vs Wade is overturned.

We tend to live by our values here in New York, and to have no tolerance for bullshit.  We know that the current situation in much of the US is untenable, and will provide a safe harbor for any refugees fleeing right-wing tyranny.  Is it any wonder that I have tremendous pride for my motherland?

3 comments:

Richard said...

Manhattan is about 2,400 miles by road from my community. I am proud of them and want to say thank you. I wish we could do that here.

Anathema Device said...

This is nice, but it's just not good enough.

Women have to be able to find the time to travel, have the procedure, recover, and get home without their family, work, and law enforcement finding out.

If you're thousands of miles away from New York, this may as well be an offer from Mars. Also, travelling when you're pregnant, suffering from morning sickness, and probably without support, with the threat of the police after you, is one of the levels of hell.

Taking 'refugees' is never, ever going to be enough for this, and if your progressive politicians don't start taking this seriously *now* - pack the SC, made the right to privacy in health care a legal one, make abortion free and legal and as ordinary as coffee - then not only will thousands of pregnant people die, hundreds of thousands of unwanted children will be born and more often than not forced upon families who resent them, or into ones who adopt them for creepy religious reasons - or worse - and all the rights which underpinned Roe and which Roe underpinned will be torn away. It's already happening - the right to contraception, IVF, even gay marriage are all under challenge in red states, and explicitly in Alito's opinion.

As this article put it very clearly:
"America is, surely we all know by now, fucked"
https://theshot.net.au/general-news/america-is-surely-we-all-know-by-now-fucked/

And there has to be massive pushback *now*. Not in the mid-terms, or the next presidential election. Now. Constantly, consistently, and immediately.

It matters all over the world. We've already got conservative christofascist politicians here in Australia cheering this decision, and those same politicians (from the currently governing party no less) are desperate to undo all the progress made so slowly and reluctantly on reproductive rights, same sex marriage, and equality over the last thirty years.

You guys have to win this.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Yeah, transporting desperate women is just the start