“We’re on the precipice of overturning Roe v. Wade,” Cuomo said at a community center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, flanked by abortion rights groups. | AP Photo Cuomo turns to abortion rights ahead of Trump's court pick

ALBANY — With President Donald Trump set to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other Democrats reiterated their desire to update New York’s abortion laws in case the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling is re-considered and modified.

Cuomo, who is seeking a third term, on Monday announced mostly redundant contraception regulations and then blasted Republicans who control the state Senate for not taking up the Reproductive Health Act. The governor's campaign committee, Cuomo 2018, also released an ad about the issue, the New York Daily News reported.


The bill, NY A1748 (17R), passed the Democrat-dominated Assembly in March but has not advanced to the Senate floor under GOP leadership. It would shift the state’s abortion law — which was enacted in 1970, three years before Roe — from the penal code to the public health statute.

It would permit abortions to be performed by a licensed, certified or authorized practitioner within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, if there is an “absence of fetal viability” or if the mother’s life or well-being is in danger.

“We’re on the precipice of overturning Roe v. Wade,” Cuomo said at a community center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, flanked by abortion rights groups.

“I want to say clearly to the Senate Republicans, it’s very simple: The bill is on your desk,” the governor continued. “You either come back and protect a woman’s right to choose and respect a woman’s reproductive health rights or the voters are going to say to you in November: ‘You’re with Trump? Well you’re fired from the New York State Senate.’”

After his speech, Cuomo told reporters that he was not calling a special session that would force senators to return to the Capitol. The governor cannot force them to vote on any specific legislation.

Cuomo has long supported the RHA, and in 2013 included it as one plank of a 10-point Women’s Equality agenda. It stalled in the Senate.

Democrats attempted to attach it as a hostile amendment to various pieces of legislation in recent months, and Cuomo dispatched Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul to cast a tie-breaking ballot on the relevant procedural vote.

But the Senate ground to a standstill, the advocates’ effort fizzled and Hochul eventually stopped coming. Despite differences on social and criminal justice policy issues, Cuomo has treated Senate Republicans with kid gloves until the last two years.

His shift came amid rising pressure from progressive groups and, this year, a primary challenge from Cynthia Nixon. At the sunset of the legislative session in June, Cuomo made a similar coordinated push against GOP members regarding a “red flag” gun control bill.

At a separate Monday event in Queens, Nixon said Cuomo was not doing enough to push the legislation and that his previous support for breakaway Democrats who let Republicans hold control of the Senate had blocked passage on all the relevant measures.

“It’s great that now that Governor Cuomo is running against a woman, in the ‘year of the woman,’ he is trying to show he is concerned about reproductive rights,” Nixon said. “But we don’t need another press conference. We need action. Roe v. Wade is not codified into law in the state of New York. The governor could have changed this, and year after year he said he would, but instead he chose to hand control to Senate Republicans through the IDC.”

Candice Giove, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport), said Cuomo was being political and repeated opponents’ arguments against the Reproductive Health Act.

“Women's health issues deserve more than political stunts with stolen one-liners from 'The Apprentice,'” Giove said. “Gov. Cuomo, a constant absentee in Albany, refuses to engage with people who have valid concerns regarding the Reproductive Health Act including non-doctors performing abortions or watering down criminal charges faced if an abuser harms a pregnant woman. He's so frightened of Cynthia Nixon that he's drinking the political Kool-Aid served by radicals and socialists who now control the Democratic Party.”