Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Participates in a Virtual Roundtable with President Biden and Governors to Discuss Reproductive Rights

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul participated in a virtual roundtable with President Biden and other Governors to discuss reproductive rights.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you, Jen. And thank you, Mr. President for convening us with the sense of urgency that I feel that you are conveying because this is a frightening time for women all across our nation. Lot of fear and anxiety out there. And I hear it from women all across the state, or they come up to me at subway stops in New York City, at farmers markets, literally young women who never even had to think about this are coming up and putting their arms around my neck and sobbing.

So there is such stress out there. So we, in the State of New York, this came the day after the Supreme Court also told us that we did not have the right to protect our citizens from people carrying concealed weapons in places like subways and Times Square, et cetera. So what I had to do is convene an extraordinary session because they weren't due back until January.

I brought them back and literally at 2:00 AM this morning, while we're still working on the gun legislation, I changed my proclamation to say we'll also include to give further protections for women in the state, what we call the equality agenda. This will prohibit discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.

So we're one step closer as of this afternoon. I think it's going to be passed by both houses to enshrine abortion rights in our state constitution. So as long as I'm Governor, these rights will not be rolled up back, but we also are prepared to serve as a destination for women who will be looking to a place like New York, and other states of my colleagues on the call, as a safe harbor.

So even before the Supreme Court decision, I knew I had to beef up our opportunities for women to come from other states. We allocated $35 million right off the bat to go to providers so they could hire more people, expand their space and make sure that they can keep their staff safe from violence as well. And we also decided to mandate all insurance companies doing business in the State of New York now have to cover abortion. And I signed six bills related to protecting our providers after the decision came down. We will stop the extradition of any search for one of our providers or a woman who's in our state who are wanted under criminal charges. That's not happening in New York.

And we're also defending our abortion providers from malpractice and other lawsuits. We also launched a public awareness campaign because there's a lot of misinformation. Women in New York are seeing the national news, they don't know whether their rights are protected here in New York. So we're going to continue to be leaders in this fight, protect our providers, protect them from the vigilante justice which has been unleashed by the states that are going to allow these private rights of action, where they're going to hunt down women and providers. This is chaos, it's frightening, but also we're doing what we can to make sure that we are protected.

Well, what's happening now? The rights of millions of women across this country are now falling on the shoulders of just a handful of states. Just a handful of states are now going to have to take care of the healthcare of women from other states. So we believe, as you do Mr. President, that what's available to New Yorkers and the other enlightened states should be available to all Americans and no one should have to travel. And that's why, as you agree with us, Congress has to act. And we sent a letter way back to Congress saying "Please pass the Women's Health Protection Act. Let's get it through the Senate." So what we're doing at the state level is key, but I completely agree with you and I commend you, Mr. President, for standing up and talking about the fact that it is the filibuster that's preventing the majority of senators, and it is the majority of senators, who want to speak on behalf of the majority of Americans.

But we understand our options are limited until next January with a new Senate. And we're all going to be focusing very hard on that outcome, because it is a matter of life and death for American women, because we do not want to go back to the days, anywhere in this country, of the back-alley abortions, which are real. I talked to one of my neighbors down the hall whose husband used to perform these abortions before abortion was legal, in New York State in 1970. And so, this is not just hyperbole. It is real.

So what we're asking to help continue at the federal level, we believe that more can be done to fund family planning services more broadly. To allow the providers and their clinics to have federal resources for these services, and they can focus on private dollars for abortion services. And I'm really grateful that you're putting an emphasis on what's going to happen for women to be able to continue to receive abortion services by mail. This is going to be a battle that people would not have foreseen. We want to make sure there's no unlawful interference. And we have to do that to ease public concerns.

And also Mr. President, we'd ask that you consider your ability to use federal facilities. What am I talking about? Veterans' hospitals, military bases, and other places where the federal government controls the jurisdiction in some of the states that are hostile to women's rights and make sure that those services can be available to other women. So those are just a few of the ideas that we encourage you to look at. An idea of what we're doing at the New York State level, but literally before our close of business today, we will have the first step toward a process of changing our Constitution, which is the boldest step we can take. And we just started that today.

So thank you for convening us. We are there to stand with you to do something to protect the right that my mother's generation had to fight for, I fought for, my daughter who's in her thirties had to fight for, and now Mr. President, I have a brand new granddaughter, and thank you for your note acknowledging that, I didn't think we'd have to fight this battle for her generation as well, but apparently we do, but we are ready to take on that fight. So thank you.