Research

Scope and Content Note

This series is the Committee's final report file, containing: 1) a complete, indexed transcript of the public hearing held on February 29, comprised of 331 pages of testimony from 53 speakers, including Betty Friedan; 2) report of the Committee to the Governor, including a Majority Report focusing on statutory issues and a Minority Report focusing on the morals of abortion. The Majority Report proposed a new statute amending the Penal Law and the Public Health Law to expand the grounds for legal abortion to include: preserving the mother's life; grave danger to the mother's physical or mental health; permanent physical or mental condition rendering the mother incapable of caring for the child; substantial risk of major birth defects or physical or mental abnormalities in the child; pregnancy resulting from an act of rape or incest; pregnancy commenced when the mother was single and under age 16 and is still unmarried; and female has at least four living children (under certain conditions); 3) a paper supplementing the final report entitled "The Law of New York Concerning Abortion and the Status of the Foetus, 1664-1968," prepared for the Committee by Committee member Cyril C. Means and later published; and 4) a small amount of routine correspondence concerning the hearing transcript and the report.