New York government Kathy Hochul has signed a bill creating a task force to investigate crisis maternity centers, one of six new abortion laws passed Monday.
Bill S.470, the Limited Services Pregnancy Center Act, establishes a task force to conduct a study into “the unmet health and resource needs facing pregnant women in New York and the impact of pregnancy centers with limited service on women’s ability to provide accurate, non-coercive health care information and timely access to a comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care.”
“Reproductive rights are human rights, and today we are signing groundbreaking legislation to protect them further and anyone seeking access to them in New York State,” Hochul said in a statement Monday.
The bill includes provisions for the task force commissioner to request patient data and funding information from crisis maternity centers, which the bill calls “restricted service maternity centers.” The task force also examines whether the center studied is affiliated with a network of crisis maternity care centers with national coverage.
Among those on the task force is a licensed medical professional whose practice covers all reproductive health care and procedures “including birth and termination of pregnancy,” according to the bill. It also requires representation by professional reproductive rights, reproductive health, and reproductive justice activists, and a New York Bureau of Social Justice member in the attorney general’s office.
New York Senator Brad Holyman, co-sponsor of S.470, said the investigation will report on “unlicensed, often deceptive facilities that offer pregnancy-related services but do not provide or refer comprehensive reproductive health care.”
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“These centers are often more interested in pushing their agenda than doing what’s best for their patient’s health, and they’re wasting precious time on pregnant people considering abortion,” he said.
Hochul signed the package of abortion laws in light of the leaked Supreme Court opinion that would quash Roe v. Wade and transfer the power to legalize or criminalize abortion to states, according to the governor’s statement.
“The women of New York will never be subjected to government-mandated pregnancies because that will happen if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade,” Hochul said.
Other bills signed as part of the package protect New York abortion providers from prosecution by states that ban the practice.
Abortion activists have reportedly targeted pro-life centers with paint and Molotov cocktails since the SCOTUS concept was made public.
Governor Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
LifeNews Note: Micaela Burrow writes for Daily Caller. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is free to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience.