ALBANY — Lee Zeldin is trying to have it both ways on abortion.
The conservative congressman from Long Island, who hopes to unseat Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, has recently argued that he will leave New York’s abortion laws in place in recent ads and appearances.
However, the Republican has a long history of anti-abortion stances, including calling for the overturning of a 2019 law protecting access to reproductive health care and vowed earlier this year to appoint a “pro-life” health commissioner if elected governor.
Until recently, Zeldin has largely avoided discussing reproductive rights on the campaign trail in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June as he remains focused on crime and the economy.
Last week, his campaign released an ad in which the Long Island lawmaker vowed that he “will not change and could not change New York’s abortion law.”
The ad clip comes months after Zeldin told members of New York Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, that he would support rolling back the state’s Reproductive Health Act.
In 2019, the Dem-led Legislature codified Roe into state law and allowed pregnancies to be terminated after 24 weeks if a woman’s life is in danger or the fetus is not viable. The law also allows a licensed or certified health care practitioner to perform abortions.
“I absolutely do not support these changes that have been made up in Albany,” Zeldin told the anti-abortion lobbyists in April. “I strongly believe that they should be reversed.”
He went further during the virtual sitdown, promising a change in “culture and policy” and imagining a hypothetical debate in which he stands his ground against Hochul or a pro-choice moderator, according to video of the event.
Last week, Zeldin appeared to offer a different take.
“The abortion law in New York, which was passed a few years ago, codified far more than Roe,” he said following a press conference in Albany. “When we woke up the day after the decision, the law in New York was exactly the same as it was the day before.
“Nothing changed, and I’m not going to change it,” he added.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision rolling back Roe, dozens of conservative-led states across the country have already moved to restrict or ban access to abortion.
Republicans have repeatedly raised the possibility of a federal ban should they win control of Congress in the midterms. While serving in the House, Zeldin has voted to bar private insurance coverage of abortion and to block federal funding for the procedure.
Hochul, meanwhile, has made reproductive rights central to her campaign and has highlighted steps her administration and lawmakers have taken in recent months to boost access to the procedure for women in New York and elsewhere.
“This is the state of New York, and we will protect a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion,” the governor said last week.
Hochul and her campaign surrogates have hammered Zeldin over his past votes to restrict abortion in Congress and the state Senate.
“Lee Zeldin knows his anti-abortion agenda is deeply disqualifying to New Yorkers and continues to lie to voters about his record as a last-ditch effort to save his flailing campaign,” Hochul campaign spokeswoman Jen Goodman said in a statement. “Just this past year, he signed onto a bill banning abortion without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Zeldin is too dangerous and extreme to ever set foot in the governor’s office.”
It remains to be seen whether the issue will drive voters to the polls for either candidate. Abortion trailed economic concerns, threats to democracy, and crime as important issues for voters in a Siena College poll released last month.
Crime, inflation and protecting democracy far outpaced abortion in a separate Quinnipiac survey released earlier this week that also showed Zeldin within striking distance of the governor, trailing her by just four percentage points.
