Buffalo’s New Bishop Confronts Politician’s Duplicity on Abortion

by Anne Hendershott

Faithful Catholics in Buffalo were discouraged to read in their local paper late last month that their allegedly pro-life Catholic senator Tim Kennedy (D-63^rd District) intends to vote in favor of New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo’s expansion of abortion in the State.  Kennedy won his seat in 2010 by running as a pro-life candidate ousting then-Senator Bill Stachowski—a Democrat with a strong pro-life record.

Claiming that his position on abortion has “evolved” after much thought and prayer, Kennedy joins a long list of self-described Catholic politicians like Governor Cuomo himself who claim that they are “personally opposed to abortion,” yet would never stand in the way of those who choose abortion.

Kennedy has already won accolades from New York’s progressives who are already making him a hero much like they made New York State Democratic assemblyman George M. Michaels a hero back in 1970 when he changed his vote to break a legislative tie by voting in favor of legalizing abortion in the State. In that important vote—legalizing abortion in New York long before Roe v Wade—Assemblywoman Constance Cook had forced a bill to repeal New York’s anti-abortion laws. The New York State Senate passed the bill 31 to 26.  But, when it moved to the Assembly, the vote resulted in a tie: 74 to 74.  That would have been a defeat, but Michaels, a Democrat who represented a district that with a 65 percent Catholic majority—in the days when all Catholics were pro-life—changed his vote from “no” to “yes.”

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Anne Hendershott is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Veritas Center at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. She is the author of Status Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education; The Politics of Abortion; and The Politics of Deviance (Encounter Books).