Tag: conservative party

Candidate Bob Cohen is Anti-Choice!!

Bob Cohen is anti-choice!  NO if’s and’s or but’s about it.

This man will say anything to get elected and that makes him the most dangerous kind of candidate there is.

Bob Cohen already has a history of turning his back on the women of Westchester.

In the spring of 2012, Choice Matters tried to give Cohen the opportunity to stand up for the rights of women. After all, he’d been a NYS Senate candidate in 2010 and was already campaigning for the newly redrawn 37th Senate district seat.

Choice Matters asked Cohen to submit a letter in support of the most basic right—the right to access reproductive health clinics safely, right here in Westchester, without fear of being kicked, grabbed, hit, physically menaced or blocked from entry. Cohen was non-responsive.

As many of you may remember, that proposed law had been carefully reviewed by the New York Civil Liberties Union to make sure that all first amendment rights were protected, and they were. All aspects of speech were protected, including prayer.

The proposed law — simply put — made clear that women should be allowed to access reproductive health care safely.

Choice Matters contacted Cohen’s campaign manager Matt several times. Matt even gave Choice Matters Cohen’s email address so we could contact him directly. And we did.

(Click here to see Choice Matters’ email to Cohen, to the address provided by his campaign manager Matt.)

Cohen never responded. Despite more calls to campaign manager Matt, Cohen refused to stand up for Westchester women.

Why was such a simple and easily satisfied request rejected?  Probably because Cohen has taken the Conservative Party line and the Conservative Party has merged with the extremist anti-choice Right to Life Party.  (We noted that on the cover of the last bright yellow 2011 Voting Guide.)

Cohen does not want the right wing of the Conservative Party to know he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, making contradictory promises to opposing groups.

For further proof that Bob Cohen is Anti-Choice, we just need to look at his Choice Matters questionnaire and his interview responses for this 2012 race.

The Choice Matters questionnaire asks whether a candidate would make his/her support of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA) a public part of his/her campaign.  (RHA is a bill that would bring New York’s abortion law into the 21st century.)  Cohen refused to answer the question!

When pushed in an interview to explain, Cohen said that he absolutely would not put anything about RHA on his literature, but if someone asked, he would tell them. Cohen is on the record in his questionnaire for not wanting to make reproductive rights part of his campaign.

Why? Simple. Because Cohen does not want to lose the votes of the extreme right, anti-choice voters of the Conservative Party.

Bob Cohen is Anti-Choice.

Imagine what Cohen has promised the Conservative Party — a party that has as key planks in its platform anti-choice and anti-gay  resolutions!! If Cohen cannot be public about his position on women’s rights, you can be certain that he will never stand up for us.

It is important to note that “Pro-choice” has become a marketing term in Westchester because Westchester voters vote Choice. And it is absolutely essential that Choice voters know who is telling the truth and can be trusted.

For example, Nan Hayworth ran in 2010 claiming she was “pro-choice.” But once elected, Hayworth became a favorite of anti-choice groups.  Hayworth currently boasts an 80% approval rating from the National Right to Life Organization; she has co-sponsored two of their bills, and, among other things, voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood.  That sure doesn’t sound like someone who is pro-choice to us.  Does it to you?

WCLA – Choice Matters’ mission is clear: “to keep abortion legal and to ensure that all women, regardless of age, race, class, status, geography or ability to pay, have full, unimpeded access to reproductive health care.”

We tell you the truth about the candidates because the women in our lives depend on us.

Clinic Access Bill Passes, But For How Long?

The Good News:
The Clinic Access Bill Passed

The Bad News:
Two Legislators Betrayed Us!

Let me start by saying thank you to those who came out. Because you were there, you gave force and conviction to our words.
The great news is that we won. The vote by our legislators on the Reproductive Health Care Access Bill, which came one week after the Public Hearing, was 10-7 our way.

Ten legislators voted to pass our bill which guarantees safe access for women to enter and exit reproductive health clinics while protecting First Amendment Rights to free speech.  This was a great victory. It has taken us more than 14 years to get this far.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that  our success will be short lived because the County Executive who is an anti-choice extremist will veto this bill.

-And because last November two pro-choice elected officials were replaced by anti-choice right-to-life zealots, we lost two important override votes.

-And, most importantly, because we have two turncoats in our midst, we will not be able to override the anti-woman County Executive’s veto.

Most disturbing to me in this is that these two turncoat opportunists –Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman — who would have given us our super-majority override against the County Executive’s veto, voted against protecting the women of Westchester.

Instead, turncoats Maisano and Spreckman decided to launch their own personal war on women in order to further their own political and personal agendas.

Maisano stated to pro-choice advocates that he had to choose between the women of Westchester and the Conservative Party endorsement.

Maisano chose the Conservative Party.

(Conservative Party Chairman Fox, who also works for County Excutive Rob Astorino on tax payer dollars, sat right in front of Maisano to cement the deal.)

To Maisano, the Conservative party is more important than the health care of, according to the census, 51.6% of Westchester’s population.

More precisely, Maisano does not care about the health care of young women and those who cannot afford a private doctor.

Maisano only cares about his own political career, and has concocted a list of fabricated arguments to explain why he did not vote for the bill. All of his arguments have been refuted by great legal minds who do not have a political agenda.

Bernice Spreckman’s reason for betraying the trust of Westchester’s women is different.
Spreckman’s son apparently now works for County Excutive Rob Astorino. This is Spreckman’s own form of job security. She knows that Astorino is an anti-choice extremist, so she decided to look out for her son and turn her back on the women of Westchester.
Some think that it is wrong that I tell you that – somehow family facts are to be kept private. I do not agree. When the facts affect an elected official’s abiltiy to make sound decisions that impact the of 51.6% of the population then I believe the public deserves to know.

Fact: Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman sought our endorsement for more than a dozen years, and received it.

Fact: They used our endorsement to get elected.

Fact: After all those endorsements, this was the first time that we sought their vote and their voice – as their two votes are critical.

Fact: NOW when their vote counts, they voted NO!

Fact: For political expediency, they  turned their backs on all of us who voted for them, slamming the clinic door in our faces.

At this juncture we must tell Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman we will not tolerate their empty words and empty promises.

Our endorsement and our votes do matter and we will not be used again.