Chris Slattery, Founder and CEO of the Yonkers-based, pro-life Evergreen Association, which runs the Bronx and Brooklyn-based Expectant Mother Care Pregnancy Centers, is suing the state of New York over a 2019 law barring employers from penalizing employees who get abortions or use birth control.
Slattery spoke with Queens County Politics from the March for Life in Washington, D.C., insisting that the law, known as the “Boss Bill”, undermines the values of his business, which promotes alternatives to abortion. “You want me to raise money for me to defeat my mission? That would be the definition of insanity,” he said. “If America requires us to promote ideas that are contrary to our mission, that’s fascism.”
Fran Fox-Pizzonia, Vice President of Government Affairs at Planned Parenthood of Greater New York disagrees, arguing that the Boss Bill ensures New Yorkers have greater privacy when making key decisions about their reproductive healthcare.
“Health care decisions should be between a patient and their provider. Politicians and employers have no place in this personal experience,” she told this reporter.
“Planned Parenthood of Greater New York applauds our state champions for refusing to tolerate discrimination and protecting people who are just trying to meet their basic health care needs.”
Regardless, some key champions of the Boss Bill have been quiet about the legal challenge. Spokespeople for Assemblymember Carmen De La Rosa (D-Inwood, Hamilton Heights, Harlem, Washington Heights), a co-sponsor, did not respond with any comment in time for this post.
QCP also contacted Michael Carter, a spokesperson for Senate Women’s Issues Committee Chair Julia Salazar (D-Bushwick, Cypress Hills, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, East New York) for comment, but he said that she was reluctant to respond, clarifying that she supports the Boss Bill, but felt that her opinion was “just not relevant” compared to that of its chief sponsor in the Senate, Jen Metzger (D-Hudson Valley).
Carter also explained that the Boss Bill did not go through the Senate Women’s Issues Committee, but rather the Labor Committee.
Senate Labor Committee Chair Jessica Ramos (D-Corona, East Elmhurst, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Astoria, Woodside) declined to respond on the lawsuit.
