Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz issued the following statement today pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, discarding nearly fifty years of legal precedent and stripping rights away from millions of American women:

Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz said, “Today is a very sad day in our nation’s history. An ultra-conservative Supreme Court, five of whom were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, has destroyed a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body, a right the vast majority of Americans support.

In New York, we have strong laws that protect a woman’s right to choose and we welcome all who can come here. However, millions of women in other states will now be faced with a decision that neither their mothers nor their grandmothers had to make.

Yesterday the Court said a state could not protect its citizens by rejecting a more than one hundred-year old concealed carry law, and today it said a state could stop a woman from making the most personal decision possible. This Court is taking our country back to the 19^th century.

There is no legal consistency to these cases. The only consistency is the ultra-rightwing political nature of these justices and their decisions. If you ever said voting doesn’t matter, or there is no difference between the political parties, these decisions prove otherwise.

Unfortunately, I fear these decisions are only the first of other ultra-right, taking-us-backwards decisions to come. No matter what they do, I will always fight to protect a woman’s right to choose, just as I will fight to protect contraceptives and LGBTQ rights.”

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