New York moves to protect transgender surgeries, abortion

CNA Staff, Feb 4, 2025 / 12:40 pm (CNA).

Lawmakers and officials in New York state are moving to protect transgender surgeries and abortion doctors following a new Trump administration directive and state-level pro-life efforts.

State orders hospitals to continue transgender procedures

State Attorney General Letitia James told New York hospitals they were required under state law to continue performing transgender procedures in spite of a recent directive from the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump last week issued an executive order restricting transgender surgeries and drugs for youth, directing that every federal agency that offers “research or educational grants” to medical institutions must ensure those institutions are not administrating transgender drugs to, or performing transgender procedures on, minors.

In a letter to hospitals on Monday, James acknowledged that order but said hospitals in the state are under “obligations to comply with New York state laws,” including laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of “gender identity.”

“Electing to refuse services to a class of individuals based on their protected status, such as withholding the availability of services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender individuals, is discrimination under New York law,” James wrote.

Trump’s executive order defines “children” as “individuals under 19 years of age.”

Protection for doctors prescribing abortion pills

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also announced on Monday that she had signed legislation allowing doctors who prescribe abortion pills to conceal their names on the prescriptions in question.

The law will allow doctors to opt to “print the name of their practice” on prescription labels rather than their personal names.

The measure gives “additional protections for doctors prescribing medications used to perform abortions to patients” in states where it may be illegal to dispense the deadly prescriptions. Multiple states have restricted abortion drugs in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s repeal in 2022.

The move comes after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in December 2024 against an abortionist in New York, alleging she illegally provided abortion drugs to a woman in Texas.

Paxton’s suit alleged that Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter gave abortion drugs to a woman across state lines even though not licensed to practice medicine in Texas and the state prohibits the delivery of abortion drugs through the mail. Carpenter has since been indicted in Louisiana on similar charges.

Hochul in signing the bill into law said it would help make New York “a safe haven” for abortion doctors and women seeking abortions.

State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, meanwhile, said the measure would help “secure New York’s status as a sanctuary” for women seeking to abort their unborn children.