New York state Assemblyman Ronald Castorina, R-Staten Island, gave a speech during the Assembly chamber and in it, he compared the rate of abortion of black babies now to the African-American genocide in the past.
The speech of Castorina caused a heated debate on the Assembly floor and many Democrats, as well as black lawmakers, were angered and even walked out as a protest against his statements. The speech of Castorina came amid the debate over a bill that will formally install federal abortion rights into state law, WGRZ.com reported.
In his speech, Castorina referred to statistics citing the race of people seeking abortions noting that African American women have the higher number of abortions in the United States. He continued to say that in 2013 in New York, for every 1,000 black babies born alive, 1,223 were aborted. He did not cite any source for his data. He added, "I urge my friends and colleagues in the African-American community to be very, very careful about this legislation, because we're talking about African-American genocide."
After the comment, lawmaker after lawmaker asked Castorina to stop his speech but he declined. Eventually, some of the Democrats at the assembly left the chamber when Castorina began to speak again. Castorina is new on the Assembly floor after being elected last April.
Others who stayed called the statement of Castorina ridiculous. At one point, Assemblyman Charles Barron, D-Brooklyn, told GOP Assemblyman Al Graf to "shut up" after Graf suggested Barron to "sit down."
Castorina continued his speech and said, "This chamber likes to look at things through the prism of race and gender all the time, but when it's inconvenient, when I brought up an issue through the prism of race, that's insulting?"
The pro-abortion bill was passed on Tuesday by an 88-44 vote. However, it is expected to not pass the Congress since it is controlled by the Republicans.
