Cuomo signs it into law, as Legislature also approves measure requiring health insurers to cover contraceptives.

New York legislators passed a bill on Tuesday granting women the affirmative right to abortions under the state’s public-health law, a move that symbolically falls on the 46th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The push comes partly as a reaction to the confirmation last October of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Abortion opponents want Justice Kavanaugh at some point to provide the decisive vote striking down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to early-term abortions. Advocates are advancing legislation in Rhode Island and New Mexico to repeal antiabortion statutes that could take effect if Roe is overturned and said the New York vote would give them momentum. “Courts can no longer be a reliable backstop to anti-reproductive health politicians. And because we don’t expect the attacks to stop, that is why we have to focus on states,” said Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The bill cleared the New York state Assembly and Senate, which Democrats dominate, in largely partisan votes. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, signed it minutes later. The Legislature also approved bills to require health insurers cover contraceptives and to prevent managers from discriminating against employees based on reproductive health choices.

“There’s nothing radical about this bill: The decision about whether to have an abortion is deeply personal,” said Sen. Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the Reproductive Health Act. “It should not have taken this long to get to this day.”

The new law takes the abortion language out of the penal code and creates a right to the procedure under the public-health law. Abortion will be allowed in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy or later, if doctors determine it necessary for the health of the mother. Republicans, who had controlled the New York Senate all but two of the last 50 years, had blocked the bill from floor consideration. Democrats won a solid majority in last year’s elections, adding eight seats. On the Senate floor, some Republicans said the bill would increase late-term abortions; others said it would make it harder to prosecute people who attack pregnant women. The GOP held a news conference with Liv Abreu, who was stabbed while 26 weeks pregnant and lost her baby. She unsuccessfully pushed an amendment to make assaulting a pregnant woman a felony.

“A baby inside its mother is not an inanimate object—it’s a life,” said Sen. Daphne Jordan, a Republican from Saratoga County. “Think of what you’re allowing to be tossed away with this vote.”

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