New York Governor Eliot Spitzer Vows to Keep Promoting Abortion 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 27, 2007
Albany, NY (LifeNews.com) — In a speech to a pro-abortion conference on Monday, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer vowed to continue his track record as one of the strongest pro-abortion governors in the nation. Spitzer has come under fire for attacking pregnancy centers and promoting embryonic stem cell research funding with tax dollars.
Spitzer spoke at the annual Family Planning Advocates Conference in Albany yesterday.
he told attendees he was worried about the judicial appointments President Bush has made and said he’s concerned they will overturn Roe v. Wade — saying "we are on the cusp of losing" the landmark case.
He pledged to update state abortion laws to make sure abortion is legal if the Supreme Court ever overturns the decision.
"They do not go far enough and so we will make it our vision this term, this year to expand New York’s law to give us all the protections that are necessary," he said.
The governor also told abortion advocates his administration would do more to promote the morning after pill and promote sex education that promotes it instead of abstinence education.
"The best thing we can do for our kids to avoid unwanted pregnancies is educate them," he said. "Education that’s based on science, not politics."
Event organizers hoped to use the event to recruit more young adults and teenagers into the pro-abortion movement, but Lori Hougens, director of New York State Right to Life, told LifeNews.com that today’s youth are more pro-life than ever before.
"To call 30 years of killing children by choice a celebration defines today’s pro-choice movement to a ‘T,’" she said. "That’s why they are pulling out all the stops to drag in a younger crop."
"Teenagers and college students are more and more pro-life. And while we’re on the topic of them recruiting the next generation let’s acknowledge the obvious — the next generation is only partly represented-the rest died by choice," Hougens added.
In addition to attacking pregnancy centers, Spitzer, when he was attorney general, tried twice to ban the phrase "Choose Life" from a pro-adoption specialty plate.
However, a three judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a pro-life group’s contention that Spitzer and state officials denied the Choose Life plate application "based on their disagreement with [the] life-affirming viewpoint expressed on the plate."
The court said the officials "engaged in viewpoint discrimination."
The state argued, in a written submission to the appeals court, that the Children First Foundation’s plate was rejected in order “to avoid any appearance of governmental support for either side in the divisive national abortion debate.”
Spitzer’s office came under fire last year when it claimed the Choose Life plates could lead to road rage.
Cynthia Nixon, a star of HBO’s Sex and the City, and Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, also gave keynote addresses at the FPA event.
