New York Protects Pregnant People In Historic Move

New Yorkers voted on Tuesday to expand protections for pregnant people and safeguard abortion care from future attacks.

Voters successfully passed Proposition 1, which changes the state’s Equal Rights Amendment to include protections for “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” It’s the first time an equal rights clause has been expanded to include pregnant people and pregnancy outcomes.

“This constitutionalizes protections for abortion in an equality framework,” Katharine Bodde, interim co-director of policy at the ACLU of New York, told HuffPost last week.

Although Prop. 1 does not explicitly use the term “abortion,” including protections for pregnancy outcomes and reproductive decisions in the state constitution further protects abortion. The term “pregnancy outcomes” includes live birth, miscarriage, stillbirth and abortion care, policy experts told HuffPost. It will also add constitutional protections for birth control and in vitro fertilization, both of which have been under threat from anti-abortion Republicans across the country.

One of the main goals of Prop. 1 is to protect people from being criminalized or punished for pregnancy outcomes such as miscarriage and stillbirth. Pregnancy criminalization occurred when Roe v. Wade was intact, and experts agree incidences have likely increased since Roe was overturned in 2022.

“The reason we are doing this in an equality framework is that it’s so important to acknowledge how important abortion access is to people’s lives,” Bodde said. “Fundamentally, limitations on abortion access and bans on abortion are symptoms of sex discrimination.”

Under the state’s Reproductive Health Act, New York currently allows abortions until 24 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions after that for nonviable fetal diagnoses, as well as if the physical health, mental health or life of the pregnant person is at risk. The passage of Prop. 1 does not change current abortion law in the state, but it will protect against any future Republican attacks against the procedure, including attempts to pass waiting periods or mandatory counseling. Prop. 1 also creates an avenue for people to go to court to fight for their rights under the expanded version of the state’s ERA.

Several states, including New York, have adopted statewide versions of the Equal Rights Amendment, even though the federal ERA stalled in the 1970s. The state’s equal protection clause initially criminalized the denial of rights to people based on “race, color, creed or religion.” Prop. 1 expands New York’s version of the ERA to include protections against discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. With the passage of Prop. 1, New York has the most expansive anti-discrimination protections in the country.

Anti-abortion advocates fought the amendment by spreading transphobic rhetoric and misinformation that Prop. 1 would allow undocumented immigrants to vote. Advocates who opposed the amendment leaned heavily on anti-transgender statements, claiming that the measure would allow men to use women’s bathrooms and let trans girls compete on sports teams and take away spots from cisgender girls.

The amendment is set to go into effect in January, although there will likely be legal challenges.