News stories tagged with "abortion"

(04/18/12) Pro-choice advocates promoting the women's reproductive health act say they are counting on Governor Andrew Cuomo to help the bill become law this year. In Albany, Karen DeWitt reports. more

(04/04/12) The new president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the North Country recognizes that she enters the job at a time when the nation's health policies and politics are making headlines. Betsy Brown, of Lake Placid, was appointed to the position on March 19. She succeeds Kathie Wunderlich, who retired last year.

Brown began her career in health care as a college-aged volunteer, helping with family planning on a student hotline. She went on to serve with the Peace Corps for two years in West Africa, and later worked in family planning in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and the former Soviet Union. Chris Morris sat down with Brown at Planned Parenthood's Saranac Lake office last week. more

(04/03/12) The Obama administration set off a firestorm when it released rules requiring employer-provided health insurance to cover the cost of contraceptives. Leaders in the Catholic Church said the policy violates their right to religious freedom.

Meanwhile, states around the country are considering hundreds of bills addressing women's health care: everything from forcing women to carry dead fetuses to term, to forcing women who seek abortions to go through invasive ultrasounds, to cutting funding for health clinics. Many women say these bills violate their right to to make their own health care decisions, and will limit access to quality health care..

The New York State legislature is considering a bill called the Reproductive Health Act. It codifies a woman's right to contraception and abortion. But even so, some women see a trend, and they're worried. more

(04/25/11) Religious groups that oppose legalized abortion staged their annual protest rally in Plattsburgh on Friday.

They sang hymns, prayed and marched outside the clinic operated by Planned Parenthood. Martha Foley has details.

(04/25/11) Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures performed in America. Women in New York state choose to terminate roughly a third of all pregnancies.

But the debate over abortion has raged ever since the practice was legalized by the Supreme Court in 1973.

Kathie Wunderlich is president of Planned Parenthood of the North Country, which operates eight clinics across the region.

Last week as the Good Friday protests were getting underway, she spoke in-depth with Brian Mann.

We asked Wunderlich to respond to a claim by Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who said that more than ninety percent of Planned Parenthood's medical services involve abortions.

(01/14/11) Much of the focus in the first two weeks of Governor Andrew Cuomo's term has been on the state's financial crisis, and the new governor's fiscally conservative prescriptions: a public employee wage freeze, spending cuts, a property tax cap.

Cuomo, a Democrat, is more in step with his party when it comes to social issues. Karen DeWitt explains. more

(09/08/10) In their final debate last night, Republicans Matt Doheny and Doug Hoffman both claimed to be the true conservative running for congress in the 23rd district.

The two men, who hope to unseat Democrat Bill Owens, promised to shrink big government and cut taxes. more

(03/24/08) On Friday, roughly 200 Roman Catholic protestors held a vigil outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in Plattsburgh. They prayed for an end to legal abortion in America. They were met by some 60 pro-choice demonstrators. The supporters of Planned Parenthood called for the protection of full reproductive rights for women. The confrontation was peaceful, even dignified. The Good Friday vigil has been a tradition for 14 years. But abortion represents one of the deepest fault-lines in American society, with the two sides embracing starkly different moral visions. Brian Mann attended Friday's vigil and he sent this reporter's notebook.

(03/27/07) Governor Spitzer, speaking before a group of family planning advocates, says America stands at the "cusp of losing" the rights upheld in the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. Spitzer says he's already taking steps to strengthen New York's laws regarding reproductive rights. Karen DeWitt reports.

(06/05/06) Republicans face a potentially bruising primary in the race to replace Governor George Pataki. Last week, former upstate assemblyman John Faso won the GOP endorsement, with backing from most Republican officials in the North Country. But some party leaders -- including Pataki and state party chair Stephen Minarik -- are still backing Bill Weld. Weld has also drawn support from Plattsburgh assemblyman Chris Ortloff and Sandy Treadwell, the former state party chair from Essex. Some top Republicans worry that Faso's conservative social views could alienate New York voters. Brian Mann spoke with Jim Ellis from Tupper Lake, chair of the Republican committee in Franklin County and a state vice chairman. Ellis says the focus during the primary should be on John Faso's economic policies and not issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.