Roe v. Wade – Page 2 – Sandy Rosenberg

Concurring with Justice Ginsburg

February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2015 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was interviewed on MSNBC last night.

MSNBC: You’ve been a champion of reproductive freedom. How does it feel when you look across the country and you see states passing restrictions that make it inaccessible, if not technically illegal?

Ginsburg: Inaccessible to poor women. It’s not true that it’s inaccessible to women of means and that’s the crying shame. We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country. There are states – take the worst case, suppose Roe v. Wade is overruled – there will still be a number of states that will not go back to old ways.

Maryland is one of those states.

If you’re older than 40, you’ll remember that in 1991 we passed a law adopting the holding of Roe v. Wade. The next year, the voters approved it on referendum, 62-38%.

Consequently, if Roe is overruled, nothing will change in Maryland because that law will be on the books.

That other states did not follow our lead demonstrates how poorly organized liberals are. Contrast that with the voter ID laws in more than a dozen red states.

I shared the Ginsburg quote with my colleagues who were the pro-choice floor leaders in 1991, as I was, (Senators Barbara Hoffman and Paula Hollinger and Delegate Larry LaMotte) and with the leading lobbyist for the bill.

“Saw the interview & it sounded like she was on the floor with us when we fought the good fight!” responded former Senator Hollinger.

“I glow with pride at what we were able to do together to secure and strengthen reproductive rights for all women in Maryland,” wrote Steven Rivelis, the lobbyist for Planned Parenthood.

For me, it’s the bill that will touch more lives than any other legislation I’ve worked on.

And I’m sending this blog to my niece, Rachel, because it’s her generation and the ones that follow that will benefit from knowing that we fought and won this good fight.

Been there, done some of that

February 17, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

From the front page of today’s NYTimes

ALBANY — Bucking a trend in which states have been seeking to restrict abortion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the finishing touches on

legislation that would guarantee women in New York the right to late-term abortions when their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable.

National abortion rights groups have sought for years to persuade state legislatures to adopt laws guaranteeing abortion rights as a backup to

Roe. But they have had limited success: Only seven states have such measures in place, including California, Connecticut and Maryland; the

most recent state to adopt such a law is Hawaii, which did so in 2006.

(Legislation making Roe v. Wade’s protections of a woman’s right to choose the law of Maryland passed the General Assembly in 1991. Senate Bill 162 was petitioned to referendum and approved by the voters, 62-38%. I was one of the lead sponsors of the House bill.)

The governor has said that his Reproductive Health Act would be one plank of a 10-part Women’s Equality Act that also would include equal

pay and anti-discrimination provisions.

(The first item in my bills.2014 file)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/nyregion/cuomo-bucks-tide-with-bill-to-lift-abortion-limits.html?hp&_r=0

Touching lives

February 24, 2011 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2011 Legislative Diary | No Comments

You can touch the lives of many people in this job.

Twenty three years ago, Maryland became the first state to help students enter public service by providing loan repayments to assist them in repaying their academic debt. That was my bill.

We heard testimony today on legislation to allow people with lower paying government or non-profit jobs to claim a deduction on their state income tax for their educational loan repayments. I introduced House Bill 623 because less than half of the people who are eligible for assistance under my 1988 bill are receiving this aid.

During the hearing, I learned that our budget staff is proposing that this program not be funded in the next fiscal year. Another issue to add to my bill list.

At the Democratic caucus meeting this week, the House sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill compared this issue to the 1991 law that made the Roe v. Wade standard on abortion Maryland law.

He then called on me to speak as the floor leader for the abortion bill. My message: we had to oppose all Senate amendments then and we have to do the same now, since the Senate will not take up the bill a second time to consider any House changes.

Afterwards, I called my niece, Rachel, to let her know that when the abortion law was petitioned to referendum 20 years ago, I wanted her to pull the lever for me for the bill on Election Day, but her father took her and her brother to dinner instead.

Next year, if the marriage bill is petitioned to the ballot, Rachel will be 27 and able to vote for the law herself.

February 24