BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — Women in Western New York are speaking out after the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Friday to overturn Roe v Wade. It now makes access to an abortion in the United State unconstitutional.
“Having someone else, like these people that we don’t even know, make decisions about us is just… very upsetting,” said Kateryna Prosvirnina, of Buffalo. “This is a huge step back for our society right now.”
Prosvirnina feels there’s more regulations on a woman than there are on guns.
“It just takes the right, away for us to make the choice for us to do what we want for ourselves,” said Prosvirnina. “Abortions are going to continue just no longer going to be safe.”
“It is a woman’s right to decide what she wants to do,” said Buthena Tobain, of Buffalo. She arrived in the United States from Sudan in 2004. She said abortion is forbidden in Sudan, but “we are in America, I thought we should have that right.”
Lauren Schugardt, also of Buffalo, said she saw the news on Twitter Friday morning, but didn’t think it was real.
I was speechless I kept refreshing thinking this can’t be real life,” said Schugardt. “I can’t just have lost rights that are guaranteed to me as a female.”
Schugardt, a mother of two boys, said she hopes her children can grow up with equal rights in all states.
“It’s a blessing to be a mom but that’s my choice,” said Schugardt. “I support any woman who makes the choice to be a mom, or not be a mom, that is her right.”
Schugardt said she is in disbelief that this ruling happened in the present day.
“I would say it’s an interesting time to be an American,” said Schugardt. “We are engrained to have such pride for our country, and be so proud of what we do here, and it doesn’t feel like that anymore.”
Pro-life supporters celebrating and applauding the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturns Roe v. Wade, ending a woman’s right to an abortion.
“We’re grateful for the recognition and the re-humanization of tiny children in utero,” remarked Michele Sterlace, executive director, Feminists Choosing Life of New York.
“I’m overjoyed,” declared Rachel Grande, pro-life.
For nearly 50 years, pro-lifers have been clearly divided against the pro-choice movement.
Sterlace met with 7 News along with a Grande, a new generation joining the pro-life movement.
“The abortion industry almost perpetuates a belief that a woman needs to be able to have an abortion, so she can be a social equal to a man, but I am a woman and I am celebrated because of my difference,” Sterlace said. “We’re grateful that the U.S. Supreme Court has found the lack of any explicit abortion right in the U.S. constitution.”
But here in New York State the 2019 Reproductive Health Act protects a women's right to choose.
Sterlace is highly critical of Governor Kathy Hochul's recent commitment of $ 35 million to support and protect abortion clinics in the state and no support for pro-life clinics.
Sterlace says instead the state should be helping impoverished women with unplanned pregnancies so they can have their children.
“In New York, the rhetoric is choice, choice, choice, but there is really a nonexistent choice for poor women facing unplanned pregnancies to choose birth rather than to abort their unborn children,” Sterlace reflected.
I asked both women if they would consider exceptions when it comes to the issue of unwanted pregnancy due to rape.
“At the moment of conception, there is a distinct strand of DNA that it is a separate life, so yes —it is an unfortunate occurrence, that people get raped and it's tragic and that's a tragedy, but it doesn't change the fact that what's inside the mother's womb is a distinct life,” Grande replied.
“If there was a pending policy that carved out a rape exception we would support that because the number of abortions that occur because of rape and incest are so minor it's almost a red herring,” replied Sterlace.
Both women say as feminists they would like to begin conversations with the pro-choice movement to discuss how to resolve issues of poverty women are facing and create solutions for pregnant women and children.
