TAKE ACTION
TAKE ACTION
Embedded Files
Demand funding for NYS Abortion Clinical Training so all New Yorkers can access abortion care
The Abortion Clinical Training Program Act (S.1438-A) provides training to help address shortages in abortion providers throughout New York State. We are calling for $5 million funding for the program in the final state budget.
Who we’re calling:
NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousin: 518-455-2585 or 518-455-2715
NYS Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie: 518-455-3791
NYS Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal: 518-455-5802
NYS Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas: 518-455-4545
Call script:
Hi, my name is {Name} and I am a resident of {city/town/zip code}. I am calling to first thank {NYS-Senate Majority Leader/Assembly Speaker/Legislator} for including $5 million in funding for Abortion Clinical Training (S.1438-A) in the {State/Assembly} One-House Budget and please ensure that the funding is in the enacted state budget to codify the NYS Abortion Clinical Training Program and enable training for NYS-licensed physicians, advanced practice clinicians, and medical residents on a range of abortion and related reproductive health care, including miscarriage management. New York State must act now to make certain provider shortages and training needs are addressed. Thank you.
Call NYS Leaders to oppose unconstitutional “buffer zone” bills
So-called “buffer zone” proposals by the Governor / NYS legislative leaders are unconstitutional and would broadly prevent First Amendment protected protest. They also undermine current protections against over-policing and would increase policing of health clinics and their patients already under great stress.
Who we’re calling:
NYS Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie: 518-455-3791
NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousin: 518-455-2585 or 518-455-2715
Senator Liz Krueger: 212-490-9535 or 518-455-2297
Senator Zelnor Myrie (constituents only): 518-455-2410
Call script:
Hello, I’m a New Yorker, living in {city/town/zip code} calling to urge {legislator} to reject the Governor’s Executive Budget proposal (PPGG Part K) and to oppose S.8599/A.9335 and any speech-free zone language in the state budget. These proposals risk infringing on the First Amendment rights of New Yorkers by creating speech-free zones that restrict speech in public space. This won’t keep New Yorkers safe. Instead, it would give law enforcement more discretion and creates a real risk of selective enforcement, especially for New Yorkers who are already over-policed. With protest rights under attack,, New York should not be passing laws that make it easier to punish people for speaking out.
Join BKForge’s legislative task force
We meet virtually the second Monday of each month at 7:30 pm. Email contactbkforge@gmail.com to join!
Join us to advocate for BKForge’s legislative and budget priorities, and to plan actions such as tabling, call relays and scripts, public forums and teach-ins, and memos of support. New task force members are always welcome, whether you’re new to legislative advocacy or an old pro!
▼ 2026 legislative priorities ▼
Health Information Privacy Act
BKForge applauds the legislature for prioritizing the Health Information Privacy Act immediately in the 2025 session and passing this bill on 1/22/25. Following the Governor’s veto in December, we thank the legislature for again taking swift action and reintroducing the bill at the start of the 2026 session. We urge the legislature to pass this bill again without delay, and we call on the Governor to then sign the bill promptly, honoring her promise to protect New Yorkers from criminalization for seeking health care.
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, President Trump and his coalition have expanded their aim to destroy abortion access, erase transgender and LGBTQ protections, and weaponize federal law enforcement and surveillance against those who provide or seek reproductive and gender-affirming care. This important bill would allow for stronger privacy protections for New Yorkers against the improper use of their electronic health data.
This bill would give New Yorkers more control over their electronic health information, like Fitbit, smartwatch, and period tracking app data, and make it harder for hostile states or the federal government to use those data to investigate, prosecute, or punish people who seek, provide, or support access to health reproductive health care and gender-affirming care in New York.
Healthy and Safe Students Act (formerly known as Comprehensive Sex Ed)
New York currently has no statewide learning standard for comprehensive sexuality education, which means students across the state are receiving inadequate, biased, or misleading sex ed — or none at all. Comprehensive, evidence-based, inclusive sex ed has been strongly associated with reductions in STIs, unintended pregnancies, sexual and gender-based violence, and bullying of LGBTQIA+ students, as well as with improvements in academic performance. By passing this bill, New York would ensure that our young people receive age-appropriate, necessary skills to foster healthy relationships and that our educators are equipped with the professional development and tools needed to guide their students. All K-12 students in the state should have access to comprehensive sex ed led by teachers who are adequately trained and knowledgeable. We urge immediate passage of this bill to mandate comprehensive sex ed statewide.
Learn more from the Healthy and Safe Students coalition website and take action through their resources:
Hospital Transparency
BKForge thanks the legislature for their fortitude in passing this bill multiple times — in the face of the Governor’s disappointing opposition. We ask the legislature to pass this bill again in 2026, and we call on the Governor to then sign the bill immediately and demonstrate her commitment to prioritizing the health of New Yorkers above the interests of hospital administrators.
Access to reproductive health care and gender-affirming health care is under attack. Now more than ever, it's crucial that we can identify health care deserts in New York and ensure that people can get the information they need to make time-sensitive health care decisions. This bill would provide much-needed hospital transparency across New York State.
This bill would give New York State the tools to identify regions in the state where particular types of care are unavailable and to understand the impacts of such gaps on communities and individual patients statewide. Moreover, it would offer New Yorkers the information they need to determine whether the hospital, or hospitals, in their area provides the care they seek prior to admission. All New Yorkers deserve to know our local hospital's restrictions on care so that we can make informed decisions about where to get care—particularly types of care that are often time-sensitive and stigmatized, like miscarriage management, abortion, treatment of ectopic pregnancies, and gender-affirming care.
NYS Abortion Clinical Training Program
Bill numbers: A2439 (2025 bill number) / S1438
BKForge commends the NYS Assembly and Senate for including funding for this program in their budget proposals. We call on legislative leadership and the Governor to ensure this bill and an associated $5 million are included in the final FY26-27 Enacted State Budget in order to codify and sustain the NYS Abortion Clinical Training Program. Continuation of funding will help ensure that an adequate number of physicians, Advanced Practice Clinicians, and medical residents receive abortion clinical training to help address shortages in abortion providers throughout the state.
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there are now more states that restrict access to abortion care than states that protect access. This has severe and far-reaching implications for not only obtaining abortion care and receiving treatment for pregnancy complications, but also for ensuring that health care practitioners are trained to provide essential reproductive health care services. The number of practitioners in New York who provide abortion care or train other providers will only continue to dwindle if the State does not invest in training. We urge New York State to ensure that health care providers receive adequate training in abortion care and related reproductive health services.
There are areas throughout NY State that have an acute shortage of health care practitioners who are trained in performing abortion care early and/or later in pregnancy. Only seven out of ten regions have clinics that perform abortion care beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy. In three regions, only two clinics provide abortion services up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. New Yorkers who live in these areas are unable to access care in their communities, particularly in rural areas, and may need to travel hours to access abortion services. Adequately funding the training program would help to mitigate these abortion provider shortages by prioritizing practitioners for training who would provide care in parts of the state that have such shortages.
Training sites are already equipped to train health care practitioners who are authorized to perform abortion in the State of New York within their scope of practice: APCs – Physician Assistants, Licensed Midwives, and Nurse Practitioners; licensed Physicians such as Family Medicine Physicians, Primary Care Physicians, Emergency Medicine Physicians, and Pediatricians; and residents or interns who are employed by a hospital or enrolled in an accredited graduate medical program and do not have access to abortion clinical training. Now New York must provide sufficient funding to sustain this training.
Health Information System Segmentation
BKForge applauds the State Senate for passing this bill. We now call on the Assembly to do the same without delay.
This bill would require electronic health record companies to create the ability to segment electronic health records and suppress sensitive health information at a patient’s direction. This would enable patients to reap the benefits of electronic health records without risking that information about their abortion, gender-affirming care, or other sensitive health care will be shared against their will and used against them.
Electronic health records improve the quality of health care by ensuring that every provider who sees a patient has access to their medical history. But, electronic health records also make a patient’s entire medical record — including records about sensitive health care — available to all providers with access to the system. And, by default, the information in a patient’s electronic health record can be shared across state lines automatically. As other states increasingly criminalize abortion care and gender-affirming care, this automatic sharing can put New York patients who travel or move to ban states, as well as the New York providers who care for them, at risk of criminalization.
Compassion and Reproductive Equity (CARE) Act
BKForge calls on the legislature to pass this bill to amend current correction law and create a standard of care for incarcerated pregnant and postnatal individuals and their babies. Currently, the rights of pregnant individuals are compromised by the policies and practices of correctional institutions and facilities in New York State. The CARE Act would address the health disparities faced by incarcerated pregnant individuals and guarantee pre and postnatal care for both the birthing parent and the baby.
The current standard of care is vague and limited in its scope — failing the population of pre and postnatal incarcerated individuals in New York State. The CARE Act, above all else, would ensure and protect the human rights of incarcerated pregnant individuals, incarcerated birthing parents of children, and their children.
Learn more from New Hour’s resources and use their form to sign on as an individual supporter.
Reforms to Paid Medical Leave program, aka Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI)
New York’s current paid medical leave is woefully inadequate. We urge the legislature to pass this bill and introduce key updates so that New York’s paid family and medical leave program would better meet the needs of New Yorkers.
Under the current system, New York workers dealing with a serious health condition — be it a complicated pregnancy or birth, a recent cancer diagnosis, an-off-the-job-injury, or another condition requiring time off work — receive a meager $170 dollars a week. This unacceptable amount has been unchanged since 1989! While it may have been reasonable then, no one can live on $170 per week in New York in 2025. What’s more, New Yorkers could lose their job and health insurance coverage while out on leave. New Yorkers work hard and deserve a reliable, affordable medical leave program.
This important bill would raise the wage replacement rate from $170 dollars a week to 67% percent of a worker’s weekly pay (capped at $1,177.32 per week) on par with NY’s Paid Family Leave (PFL) program. It would also provide workers with job protection and continued health insurance while out on leave, and allow leave to be used intermittently when needed — for example, to take doctor ordered rest days during a complicated pregnancy, a benefit that is already available under NY’s PFL program but which can not be used for self-care.
Learn more from A Better Balance and take action to support the bill by submitting a letter to your New York State lawmakers.
Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act
In 2021-2022, the US saw the first annual increase in infant mortality rates in 20 years, and at a higher rate among Black women (source: Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System). Currently, women of color—particularly Black women—exhibit a maternal mortality rate of 3-4 times that of Caucasian women. Evidence demonstrates that provider bias holds more responsibility for maternal illness and death in pregnancy care, as well as child outcomes, than other factors including access to health care, socioeconomic status, and physical health among Black women. However, providers in New York involved in this care are not presently required to undergo any specific implicit bias training or testing, nor does there exist a system to track incidents related to bias or stereotyping.
We urge the legislature to pass the Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act, which would amend state public health law to implement an implicit bias training and follow-up program for all health care providers involved in perinatal care. It would also require hospitals to provide written information regarding patient rights, including how to seek legal counsel in case of pregnancy-related injury or death, and require information related to pregnancy to be included on death certificates if known.
Maternal Health, Dignity, and Consent Act
We urge the legislature to pass the Maternal Health, Dignity, and Consent Act, which would require informed consent to drug test pregnant people and newborns — a critical component of supporting healthy pregnancies, infants, and families. Giving pregnant and postpartum people the information they need to make informed decisions about drug testing and screening is vital to preserving the patient-provider relationship. When patient-provider trust is broken, maternal-fetal health is at greater risk because pregnant people can be afraid to access prenatal care, with potentially devastating consequences.
The bill was drafted with the input of service providers and impacted people who have been forced to submit to drug testing without informed consent. This practice can lead to forced family separation; in some cases, newborns are removed from parents before they have even been discharged from the hospital—even though research shows that newborns have better health outcomes if they remain with their parents. This testing disproportionately harms Black and brown communities, who may be racially profiled by providers. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics both recommend the practice of obtaining specific and informed consent prior to administering a biological drug test.
To learn more, visit informedconsentny.com and find resources from NYCLU, the Bronx Defenders, Pregnancy Justice, Drug Policy Alliance, and others in support of the bill.
Coverage for All
We urge the legislature to pass this bill, which would expand health insurance access for New Yorkers who are excluded from eligibility for coverage because of their immigration status. This bill would direct the Commissioner of Health to seek approval from the federal government for the use of surplus reserves in the basic health plan trust fund, which supports the New York State Essential Plan, to support individuals covered under the 1332 state innovation waiver program. The goal of the state legislation is to improve access to care by expanding eligibility for certain publicly subsidized programs for individuals who currently face barriers to health care coverage due to their immigration status.
Voluntary Contribution Fund for Abortion Access
Bill numbers: A1806
S758 (2021-2022 bill number)
We call on the legislature to establish an Abortion Access Fund and permit taxpayers to voluntarily contribute to it on their state income tax return form. The money would be distributed by the Department of Health to nonprofit organizations that provide logistical and financial support to individuals who cannot afford abortion care. It is critical that the legislature take this step to support more equitable abortion access. Abortion is prohibitively expensive for many, with the average cost ranging from $523 at 10 weeks to $3,000 at 24 weeks gestation. Passing this bill would establish a mechanism for New Yorkers to help low-income people with these costs.
There are already more than 20 voluntary contribution funds on the New York State tax form. Examples include a fund to support the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid; the Love Your Library fund; and the Return a Gift to Wildlife fund that benefits the state’s fish, wildlife, and marine resources. The proposed legislation would create an Abortion Access Fund as an additional option for taxpayers.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse