'Gossip Girl' Actress Blasts NY Gov. Cuomo for Supporting Bill to Expand Abortion
Actress Margaret Colin, who is best known for her roles on "As the World Turns" and "Gossip Girls," has spoken out against New York's Reproductive Health Act, a bill supported by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that removes restrictions on abortion, such as parental notification and a 24-hour waiting period.
Colin is featured in two videos released by Feminists for Life, a pro-life organization, which believes that New York's abortion rate, highest in the nation, is evidence of other problems in the state, among them being a lack of support for pregnant women.
The first video released Tuesday speaks against the governor's support for the Reproductive Health Act, sponsored by state Sen. Andrea Stewart Cousins (D-Yonkers), because it would ban the prosecution of criminals whose violent attacks against pregnant women led to the deaths of their unborn babies.
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Passage of the legislation would also conflict with New York state law that defines homicide to include the death of "an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than 24 weeks."
Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life, told The Christian Post on Wednesday that if the New York legislature passes the bill, they will decriminalize anybody who brutalizes a pregnant woman, and they couldn't be prosecuted for the death of the unborn baby because the act would be considered "a simple assault."
The second video, also featuring Colin, is scheduled to be released on Thursday, and will underscore the impact the legislation will have on parental rights, as well as the treatment teenagers and young women will receive in clinics that would be allowed to let "any health care provider" perform an abortion.
Foster, who pointed out that New York has the highest rate of abortions in the United States, believes the statistic is a sign that the state is not doing enough to help women. She also believes the bill supported by the governor would only increase the number of high-risk, late-term abortions, and would do nothing to serve women who need health care and support during their pregnancies and after they give birth.
"Abortion masks the problems women face," said Foster, who added that the Cuomo-supported bill will only magnify the problems for women who need health care and other support services, not an abortion.
Kelly Vincent-Brunacini, the executive director of Feminists Choosing Life of New York, is also opposed to the Reproductive Health Act, because it will "make abortion a fundamental right in the state," thus "making it immune to common-sense restrictions, such as gestational limits, parental notification, and a 24-hour waiting period." She's also concerned that passage of the bill would lead to an increase in fatalities in late-term abortions.
"We support nine of the 10 points in Gov. Cuomo's Women's Equality Act," Brunacini said. "We are asking him to pull the abortion component out. He's holding women hostage to what his agenda is. There's nothing in his plan that would enable a woman to carry a child to term … there's no support, no alternatives. Thirty-three percent of pregnancies in New York end in abortion. New York is not meeting the needs of women."
