Kathy Hochul 'awards' over $13 million to New York abortion providers

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced that she has awarded $13.4 million in grant money to the state's abortion providers in order to "further expand access to abortion services."

In the second round of New York's "Abortion Provider Support Fund," Hochul, who took office when Andrew Cuomo resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment, allocated the money to 37 abortion providers, covering 64 clinics.

The move was announced in a press release from the unelected Democrat's office.

"The second round of funding builds on the Governor's commitment to ensure safe abortion access for all New Yorkers by expanded eligibility to include family planning providers that were not awarded funding during phase one, other licensed healthcare providers, and independent clinics," the statement reads.

"New York State is committed to protecting reproductive rights, and as other states wage a war on abortion access we will continue to be a safe harbor," Gov. Hochul herself said. "To ensure access to reproductive health care, we must provide the resources and support providers need. I will not stand by and allow women to be subjected to government-mandated pregnancies."

Even with the overturn of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, the state of New York is not under threat of having abortion rights being reversed, with its overwhelmingly Democratic and pro-abortion legislature. Abortion has actually been legal in the state since three years prior to the original Roe ruling.

Despite this, Hochul has fear-mongered about abortion rights being taken away.

On Wednesday, she falsely accused her Republican opponent in her run for another term, Rep. Lee Zeldin, of pledging "to ban abortion without exceptions."

"Governors are the last line of defense to protect our reproductive rights — and Lee Zeldin has pledged to ban abortion without exceptions," she tweeted. "We can't let him roll back our reproductive rights. On November 8th, we will reject his extremism."   

In reality, Zeldin made no such pledge. According to his campaign, he recognizes the political reality that abortion will remain legal in the state, and has acknowledged that the New York Legislature would never approve a measure to make abortion illegal.

​​Zeldin spokeswoman Katie Vincentz told the Buffalo News, "We do not expect the Democratic majorities in either house to send Gov. Zeldin a bill to change the laws in New York."

Abortion access in New York has actually already been rapidly expanding, with the state seeing a 19 percent increase in abortion clinics in just three years, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

"There were 252 facilities providing abortion in New York in 2017, and 113 of those were clinics. These numbers represent a 19% increase in clinics from 2014, when there were 218 abortion-providing facilities overall, of which 95 were clinics," the reproductive rights research and policy organization reported.

According to the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, the majority of New York City's abortions are being had by young black women.

"Eight percent of New York City abortions were obtained by girls under the age of 20, with five percent of total abortions on girls ages 18 and 19 and three percent on girls ages 17 and younger. A quarter of the abortions were performed on women ages 20 to 24, and 28 percent were on women ages 25 to 29. Twenty-one percent were obtained by women ages 30 to 34, and 13 percent were on women ages 35 to 39. Five percent were on women ages 40 and older," the organization reported, using data from 2019.  

"Non-Hispanic black women are the racial group undergoing the largest percent of abortions in New York City in 2019, accounting for 35 percent of the total," the report added. This is a significantly disproportionate amount of abortions performed on black people compared to the black population, as they only account for 20.2 percent of the city.  

In New York City, thousands more black babies are aborted each year than born alive, according to the Wall Street Journal.