State Senator Kristen Gonzalez (D-Long Island City) and Assemblymember JoAnne Simon (D- Boerum Hill) have just signed on as co-sponsors to to Assemblymember Karines Reyes’s bill A6761 and State Senator Rachel May’s S8352. We call it, “The Worst Children’s Health Bill Ever.”
Albany is lying about the bill in the official description of A6761/S8352 on the State Senate and Assembly websites. The Assembly description says the bill, “allows homeless youth to give effective consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services, provides for insurance coverage of such health care services consented to by such youth.“ The Senate website says S8352, “Allows certain minors to consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services.” What the bill really does is allow ANY medical procedure to be done to ANY and ALL minors in New York without parental knowledge or consent. This fact was confirmed by Justin Westbrook-Lowery, Chief of Staff for A6761 sponsor Assemblymember Karines Reyes, and that’s exactly what the plan language of the bill says.
Reyes inaccurately said in an interview with Bronx News 12 that the bill covers, "a very small fraction of young people." That statement is factually incorrect. Reyes is either misrepresenting her bill, or she doesn’t understand what A6761 does, since the bill explicitly covers ALL children in New York. And we are hearing from legislators all over the state who believe the misleading official description of the bill.
TAKE ACTION
Save the Date, May 7. We are going back to Albany for a lobbying day, and stopping A6761/S8352 is a top priority.
Please use the panel to the right to send a message to your State Senator and Assembly member correcting all the incorrect information Reyes is generating and asking them to oppose A6761 and S8352.
Get on the phone to your Assemblymember and State Senator. Please call their offices and let them know you want them to oppose A678661/S8352.
Look them up here:
https://nyassembly.gov/mem/search/
https://www.nysenate.gov/find-my-senator
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Call new sponsors Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember JoAnne Simon and politely ask them if they know the official description is inaccurate. Contact information and talking points are below.
Senator Kristen Gonzalez (518) 455-3250, (718) 765-6674
Legislative Office Building, Room 817
Albany, NY 12248
Twitter: @Gonzalez4NY
Assemblymember JoAnne Simon, (518) 455-5426, (718) 246-4889
LOB 435
Albany, NY 12248
https://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberJoAnneSimon
Call A6761/S8352 sponsors Reyes and Senator Rachel May Tell them you oppose this insane bill and ask why the official description of the bill is inaccurate.
Karines Reyes, Sponsor, (718) 931-2620, (518) 455-5102
LOB 327, Albany, NY 12248
Twitter: @karinesreyes87
https://www.facebook.com/KarinesReyes87
Senator Rachel May, Sponsor (518) 455-2838, (315) 478-8745
Legislative Office Building, Room 803
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-2838
Call the legislature’s leadership Ask them to oppose this insane bill and ask why the official description of the bill is inaccurate.
Carl Heastie, Speaker of the Assembly
LOB 932, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-3791, (718) 654-6539
Twitter/X: @carlheastie
https://www.facebook.com/carl.heastie
Amy Paulin, Chair, Assembly Health Committee
(518) 455-5585, (914) 723-1115, sponsor
LOB 822, Albany, NY 12248
Twitter: @AmyPaulin
https://www.facebook.com/assemblywomanpaulin
Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate Majority Leader
Albany: (518) 455-2585, District: (914) 423-4031
https://www.facebook.com/andrea.stewartcousins
Twitter: @AndreaSCousins
Gustavo Rivera, Health Committee Chair
Capitol 502C
Albany: (518) 455-3395, District: (718) 933-2034
https://www.facebook.com/Hon.Gustavo.Rivera
Twitter: @NYSenatorRivera
The following members of the Assembly and State Senate have signed on as co-sponsors for the bill. Please call their offices and politely ask them to reconsider their sponsorship and ask them if they understand that the bill is inaccurate and contrary to the official description.
Assemblymembers
Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn: 518-455-5385, (718) 940-0428,
LOB 727, Albany, NY 12248
Twitter: @NYSBichotteHerm
https://www.facebook.com/RodneyseBichotte
Linda Rosenthal: (518) 455-5802, (212) 873-6368, Co-Sponsor
LOB 943, Albany, NY 12248
No Twitter
No Facebook
Andrew Hevesi: (518) 455-4926, (718) 263-5595, Co-Sponsor
LOB 626, Albany, NY 12248
Twitter: @AndrewHevesi
https://www.facebook.com/assemblymanandrew.hevesi.3
Jeffrey Dinowitz: (518) 455-5965, (718) 796-5345, Co-Sponsor
LOB 632, Albany, NY 12248
Twitter; @JeffreyDinowitz
https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyDinowitz
Chris Burdick, (518) 455-5397, (914) 244-4450,
LOB 417
Albany, NY 12248
BurdickC@nyassembly.gov
https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBurdickAD93
Twitter/X: @BurdickAD93
Yudelka Tapia, (5180 455-5511, (718) 933-6909
LOB 432
Albany, NY 12248
Harvey Epstein, (518) 455-5506, (212) 979-9696
LOB 419
Albany, NY 12248
Rebecca Seawright, (518) 455-5676, (212) 288-4607
LOB 744
Albany, NY 12248
Twitter/X: @SeawrightForNY
https://www.facebook.com/RebeccaASeawright
https://www.instagram.com/seawrightforny/
And in the State Senate please call:
Senator Samra Brouk
Legislative Office Building, Room 812
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-2215
brouk@nysenate.gov
Please share this message with friends and family, and please share on social media.
TALKING POINTS
Asm. Reyes acknowledges the bill covers all children in the Memo she wrote for the bill saying it would allow “A minor who comprehends the need for, the nature of, and the reasonably foreseeable risks involved in a health services, as well as alternatives, may consent to the service on their own.” No age limit, no limit to "homeless" minors, this includes all minors in the State.
Similarly, the New York Civil Liberties Union in a statement supporting A6761/S8352, wrote “A6761 (Reyes) would fill the gaps in New York law by allowing decisionally-capable young people to consent to their own health care. The NYCLU strongly supports A.6761 and urges its immediate passage.”
Legislators need to consider these issues:
The minimum age for everything is being raised, but lowered for medical procedures and drugs?
For more than a decade, New York legislators have been steadily raising the minimum age for minors to do everything from using tanning salons to buying tobacco to getting married. Yet in the world view expressed in A6761, a 12-year-old is not mature enough to go to a tanning salon but he or she is old enough to decide to remove healthy organs.
These are just some of the ways New York has raised minimum ages for minors:
2012, Age for using a tanning salon raised to 16.
2012, Minimum age for piercings and tattoos without parental consent set at 18
2016, Age for tanning raised to 18
2017, Age of marriage raised from 14 to 17 with parental and judicial consent
2019, Minimum age a person can be prosecuted as an adult raised to 18
2019, Minimum age to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes raised from 18 to 21
2020, Legal age of marriage raised to 18
2021, Age to buy a semi-automatic rifle raised from 18 to 21
2022, Age to buy nitrous oxide cylinders raised to 21
2023, Juvenile delinquency prosecution of any child under 12 banned
2024, Minimum age to drive an All-Terrrain Vehicle (ATV) raised from 10 to 14.
Please share this message with friends and family and please post to social media.