NY Governor's Offer of 'Safe Harbor' for Floridians Seeking Abortions Gets Turned Against Her
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is giving new meaning to the word “disgraceful” — she just doesn’t know it.
Holding the top spot in a state that’s become a byword for out-of-control crime and a flood of illegal immigration should be bad enough for any politician.
But inviting Florida residents north just so they can obtain an abortion in the Empire State takes matters to a whole new level — and a tsunami of social media disgust showed it.
Hochul drew attention with a post on the social media platform X on April 1, where she reacted to a Florida Supreme Court ruling earlier in the day that upheld a Sunshine State law that banned abortions after 15 weeks gestation.
The ruling cleared the way for another, even more restrictive law to go into effect, as CNN reported.
That law, signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in April 2023, bans abortions after six weeks of gestation, though it does contain exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape, incest or human trafficking, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Hochul’s post called the Florida law “disgraceful and dangerous.”
“Let me be clear: If you need care, New York will be your safe harbor,” she wrote, apparently addressing Florida women.
Florida’s plan to implement a six-week abortion ban is disgraceful and dangerous.
Let me be clear: If you need care, New York will be your safe harbor.
We refuse to go backwards.
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) April 1, 2024
As a policy indicator, it’s par for the course for a Democrat in all-abortion-all-the-time New York. This is a state, after all, where the law allows abortion up to 24 weeks for any reason, but puts no restrictions on the procedure after that if it’s deemed “necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.”
Without a definition of “health,” that’s a license for abortion up to birth, for any reason, regardless of the baby’s viability outside the womb, and Democrats know it.
But as a public relations statement, from the governor of a state that’s hemorrhaging population — (like its liberal brethren) thanks to its leftist policies — it was a disaster.
With more than 120k views as of April 2, virtually all of its more than 1.8k responses were filled with contempt.
Why would you care about abortions when you allow ILLEGAL ALIENS to murder NYC’s American Citizens & take over their homes? Take several seats you fkn hypocrite.
— Rando Grumpo (@YoHolz) April 2, 2024
No, abortion until birth is disgraceful. Glad you want to reward irresponsibility and punish babies who could survive outside the womb.
— What? (@Possiblyinabit) April 2, 2024
Saving babies is moving forward!
— Antone (@Antone1956) April 2, 2024
Touting the killing of the unborn like it’s a tourist attraction is disgraceful! Oh, thank you for acknowledging that killing the unborn is still legal in places like NY so you don’t need Roe v Wade.
— Gerrit Cramer (@cramer_gerrit) April 1, 2024
Not a safe harbor for the baby though.
— Edward McGrath (@edmcgrath) April 2, 2024
On and on the responses go in virtual unanimous condemnation of Hochul’s words.
Now, any American who follows the news understands that the abortion fight isn’t going anywhere.
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade was a momentous victory for the pro-life movement, but it also galvanized pro-abortion Democrats and was almost certainly one of the major reasons the 2022 midterms resulted in a closely divided House of Representatives when even Democrats were expecting a “red wave” of Republican victories.
(No honest person likes citing The New York Times when it comes to an issue like abortion, but even stopped clocks are right once in a while. This article is one of those times for the Times. The headline: “How Democrats Used the Abortion Debate to Hold Off a Red Wave.”)
It’s going to be a part of the November election in Florida — a state where DeSantis won re-election by an overwhelming margin in 2022, but where a constitutional amendment on abortion is going to be on the ballot this fall, as CNN reported.
The amendment language states, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
Like the New York law, it’s a license for unrestricted abortion.
Constitutional amendments need 60 percent approval to pass, so it’s a steep climb, but regardless of whether it passes, the amendment will draw Democrats out in droves — even if they understand what a disaster the Joe Biden presidency is.
Former President Donald Trump recorded victories in Florida in 2016 and 2020. The abortion amendment and the six-week ban could make 2024 a chancier prospect. (That might be why Trump was critical of the ban in September.)
But those are fights for another day.
What counted on April 2 was the flood of revulsion and ridicule that greeted Hochul’s invitation to Floridians to come to her state — if only to destroy an unborn child.
And this, only days after the governor was embarrassed at the wake for a New York City police officer who died because of the leftist, criminal-coddling laws of the state she billed as a “safe harbor.”
She called Florida’s law “disgraceful”? She’s giving new meaning to the word.
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