Why New Yorkers Should Vote “Yes” on Proposition 1

By: The NYCLU

New Yorkers deserve the freedom to control our own bodies, lives, and futures. But across the country, politicians are restricting people’s rights and freedoms, including the right to abortion.

On the November 2024 ballot, New Yorkers will have the opportunity to protect against these attacks by voting YES on Prop 1. If voters approve it, the New York Equal Rights Amendment will be added to our constitution and millions of New Yorkers will gain new protections against discrimination.

Our State Constitution Does Not Protect All of Us

Our New York State Constitution currently fails to prohibit discrimination against groups who have been historically targeted, including those with disabilities, LGBT people, immigrants, women, and pregnant people. 

We need a constitution with broad protections for every New Yorker, and Prop 1 gives voters the power to protect our most important rights and freedoms, now and in the future.

What Prop 1 Would Do

Prop 1 would close loopholes in the state constitution to protect abortion and to make sure that the state government cannot discriminate against any New Yorker. 

While New York State has laws in place to protect New Yorkers, these laws can be changed or rolled back depending on who is in the state legislature or Governor’s Mansion. Prop 1 would embed our fundamental rights and freedoms in the New York State constitution so that they are permanently protected — and not subject to change with the political winds.

Prop 1 would also explicitly protect against discrimination based on a person’s pregnancy or pregnancy outcome — essential language given the national trend of punishing and criminalizing people for pregnancy outcomes like miscarriages and stillbirths. It prevents the state from passing an abortion ban, banning private insurance coverage of abortion, punishing or prosecuting pregnancy outcomes like a miscarriage, or adding medically unnecessary burdens on patients or providers.

No New Yorker should ever be discriminated against by the government, no matter who we are, who we love, whether we have a disability, or whether we decide to have an abortion. Voting YES on Prop 1 in November will ensure that never happens.