Tag: gelfarb

Astorino Supports Terrorizing Women – Vetoes Clinic Access Bill

Last Friday, just minutes after the conclusion of a press conference calling on the County Executive to support safe access of reproductive health care centers, Astorino vetoed  the bill. (Watch the Press Conference.)

He cited a litany of trumped up arguments that he rehearsed on Channel 12 the weekend before. These manufactured arguments have all been proven groundless by some of the greatest legal minds in New York and by New York law itself. Astorino’s veto was dripping with untruths intended to disguise his real motivating force.

Fact: Astorino vetoed the bill because his right-to-life anti-choice extremist constituents asked him to do so. (See the promise made in an email from zealot John Mark-click here.)

Astorino knew he could get away with this because he made sure that there was no super majority to override  his veto. His little puppets, led by opportunists Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman who have become traitors to Choice, don’t care what happens to women who use clinics and centers for access to health care.

Unlike these Astorino puppets, many women of  Westchester face financial constraints that do not allow them to visit a private doctor so as to avoid harassing and terrorizing demonstrators.

Mr. Astorino and his allies in the Republican delegation are waging a silent war against Westchester’s women and our families.

Despite what Astorino and his minions would have you think, the Clinic Access Bill is not about providers. It is about women: your mother, your sister, your daughter, your aunt.

It is about women accessing safe, good, affordable health care.

It is about health care for senior women who need breast exams, pap smears, and more.

It is about younger women who need cancer screenings and comprehensive reproductive health care.

This is not about County tax dollars. It is about women and health care.

This veto stands with other attacks by this administration and its allies in the Republican delegation.

Astorino’s handpicked candidate Sheila Marcotte–along with Mike Smith, Gordon Burrows, and David Gelfarb–led the way in voting NO to funding senior transportation-just $15,000 in the County budget.

This money was allocated to transportation ONLY for seniors, most of whom are women–some widowed or divorced  and statistically one of the least financially stable groups in our society. And Astorino’s puppets wants to deny them transportation!

Astorino has made it increasingly expensive for the working poor to qualify for childcare. The result is that far fewer are qualifying, and then must choose between quitting their jobs or placing their kids in unlicensed and potentially unsafe facilities-something you can bet Astorino would never do to his own kids.

Astorino has cut four after school programs that were receiving partial funding from the federal government. Why? Because he can.  Who in a community hanging on just simply to survive has the time or the ability to fight back?

The list of his actions is much longer, and simple to understand.

Rob Astorino has brought the War on Women and our Families to Westchester–and his allies like Sheila Marcotte, are helping him target the most vulnerable.

It’s Now or Never for Westchester’s Women!

We Need You to Speak Out for Women’s Safety and Privacy!

The Clinic Access Bill is scheduled for a Public Hearing at 7 p.m., Monday, April 30, 2012
Westchester County Office Building
148 Martine Ave, 8th floor
White Plains, NY
Put This on Your Calendar & Show Up, Please!

They Need to Hear from YOU!

The Following Legislators will not promise to support it!!
(Either they voted against furthering the bill to bring it to the floor or failed to vote for it at.)

Call ALL of Them!

Demand that They Stand Up for Women!

We deserve safe access to reproductive health centers!

David Gelfarb            995-2834                                                                                 gelfarb@westchesterlegislators.com

Jim Maisano              995-2826    maisano@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                      Bernice Spreckman  995-2815    spreckman@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                       Sheila Marcotte         995-2817   marcotte@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                           John Testa                 995-2828   testa@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                              Gordon Burrows      995-2830                                                                                                                                                                                       burrows@westchesterlegislators.com

Michael Smith            995-2847                                                                                                                                                                                              smith@westchesterlegislators.com

They need to hear from you.  Last December no one turned out except for a room full of anti-choice extremists, and the bill was never brought up for a vote. We fought hard to bring it back. Now you need to fight.
___________________________________________________________________

More than a decade ago, Senator Andrea Stewart Counsins and Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, then County Legislators, fought to ensure that women had safe access to women’s reproductive health centers. Unfortunately, they were not successful.  It has taken us more ten years to get to this point. We had a shot at it again last December and came up short. Now, after months of discussion, review, and dissection, the Clinic Access Bill—that would ensure women safe access to reproductive health centers—was voted out of Committee and sent to the Westchester County Board of Legislators for a vote.

This bill protects First Amendment Rights and takes a big step toward protecting Westchester’s women.

Come out and show your support for this bill tonight!

We must excerise our right to speak up and be heard.
Please come and speak out.

For the record: 1. The Bill was carefully reviewed to make sure that it was 100% in compliance with First Amendment rights – for all parties involved; and, 2. There is no other law–not state or federal–that presently protects Westchester’s women’s safety as they enter and exit reproductive health centers.

Tell Them: We Elected Them to Protect Women!

Breaking News: The War on Women Hits Westchester!

Right to Life County Executive
Cuts Funding for Contraception for Teens, Well-Baby Care and Sex Education

This is outrageous! Less than three months after the Department of Health and Human Services announced that contraception is so important that it is being designated preventive care, in accordance with the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, and joining the list of key services such as mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, prenatal care, well-woman visits, and gestational diabetes screenings, Astorino puts his right-to-life, anti-birth-control, far-right mentality into action, attacking our teenagers’ health and rights.

Nothing seems more like preventive care than contraception!

Why is Astorino doing this? This is clearly not about reducing our taxes or about jobs.

Just like the tea baggers in Congress who are seizing every opportunity to attack women’s reproductive rights, Astorino has chosen this moment, when Westchester has sky rocketing unemployment and depleted tax revenues to put his personal anti-choice tea party stamp on our county.

Simply not funding contraceptives and not teaching sex ed does not make sex go away. Instead, it will most likely lead to a dramatic increase in teen pregnancies.

When these babies are then born there will be no well-baby care available because Astorino has cut that too.

Astorino is the true embodiment of the right-to-life philosophy: care about the fetus, but when it’s born, throw it and its mother under the bus.

Who is most effected by Astorino’s actions? Anyone who  utilizes any one of Westchester County’s community health centers—teenagers, the unemployed, the working poor, those without health insurance.

Who won’t it affect? Astorino and his financially secure friends.

On Election Day
Astorino Wants Your Help In This Attack

Astorino has hand-picked candidates to challenge incumbents. The Astorino gang have all sworn their allegiance to him as attested to at the press conference held on October 7th. On the steps of the County office building and in their own press releases, these candidates have said they will be a [guaranteed] vote for the Astorino agenda and that they share his [governing] philosophy more than 99% of the time.

That means they too believe in outsourcing jobs including the Community Health Centers, as well as cutting funding for contraceptives for teens, well-baby care and sex ed.

Astorino and his gang are committed to creating a sick Westchester, not a healthy one!