A New York judge has ruled that state election officials don’t have to include the word “abortion” in a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution which would protect abortion in the state. The amendment would add categories to the state’s anti-discrimination law, but opponents say it will protect abortion as a right by prohibiting discrimination based on “pregnancy,” “pregnancy outcomes,” and “reproductive health care and autonomy.”
New Yorkers for Equal Rights is the coalition responsible for the amendment. Sasha Ahuja, director of the coalition campaign, said the language “will permanently protect New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms, including the right to abortion — and voters deserve to know that at the ballot box.” Proponents of the amendment actually want to ensure that voters understand that the amendment would protect abortion as well, because they believe it would garner more positive votes to secure its passage.
The New York Constitution currently prohibits discrimination based on race, color, creed, or religion; the proposed amendment would expand it to include the prohibition of discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, age, and disability as well as “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive health care and autonomy.”
READ: Wondering where abortion will be on the ballot in November? Read this.
Last month, New York’s Board of Elections, which is responsible for writing explanations of ballot measures for voters, said it would use the ballot proposal’s technical language in the description rather than explain the proposal for voters. Democrats sued in an attempt to force the board to describe the amendment rather than repeat the exact wording of the amendment in the description.
But State Supreme Court Judge David A. Weinstein said the Board of Elections’ wording in the description of the measure should not be altered to include “abortion.” He said the language “was not inherently misleading, and thus cannot serve as a basis for striking the certified language.”
According to the Associated Press, Weinstein was reluctant to state that the amendment would protect abortion. “The central problem with these arguments arises out of the language of the amendment itself,” wrote Weinstein. “I lack the requisite crystal ball to predict how the proposed amendment will be interpreted in particular contexts, nor do I believe it appropriate for a court to answer complex interpretive questions regarding the meaning of a proposal before it has even been enacted, or to compel the Board to do so.”
