Leaders Decry City’s Abortion Rate
By Jessica Ablamsky
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| Protesters from the National Organization for Women seek to ensure that reaction to the elevated abortion numbers does not include a limit on the practice.
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Religious leaders gathered together in Manhattan on Jan. 6 to highlight the “shocking” number of abortions in New York City.
In 2009, 39 percent of pregnancies in the City ended in abortion, according to a recent report by the City Dept. of Health.
“This New York community is rightly celebrated for its warm welcome to immigrants, for its hospitality, sense of embrace and inclusion, and gritty sensitivity for those in need,” said Manhattan Roman Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan. “But we are tragically letting down the tiniest, most fragile and vulnerable: the little baby in the womb. We have to do more than shiver over these chilling statistics. I invite all to come together to make abortion rare, a goal even those who work to expand the abortion license tell us they share.”
The statistics are evidence of a larger citywide problem, said Erica Sackin, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of New York City.
“To focus on just abortion rates is to ignore the larger issue,” she said. “The fact is that New Yorkers aren’t having safe sex. There are huge disparities, and the issue we need to deal with is the high rate of unintended pregnancies.”
The rate of STD transmission in the City is “astronomically” higher than nationally, she said.
“We’re living in a city where we don’t require sex education to be taught in schools,” she said. “It is in fact up to each individual principal, if in fact they teach it, and what they teach.”
Reach Reporter Jessica Ablamsky at jablamsky@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 124.