New York Bookstore Closes in Protest Over Abortion Law

Colin Fredericson
By Colin Fredericson
August 18, 2019New York
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New York Bookstore Closes in Protest Over Abortion Law
Cindy Luna holds her son Mateo at her home in Herndon, VA on June 5, 2019. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

A New York bookstore owner is closing down his shop and moving to Texas over New York’s new abortion laws.

Jon Speed, owner of The Book Scout in Syracuse, left a flyer on his front door explaining the decision, via a photo on the store’s website.

“Due to the continued tyranny of the State, we will no longer operate a small business in New York.

“We cannot, in good conscience, continue to pay sales tax to a state that encourages the murder of its own children with glee.”

He announced reduced prices on his stock in preparation for the move. The story has since gone viral.

Speed spoke with Fox News about what made him choose Texas.

“Well we were on our way down to Texas visiting some friends and also speaking on behalf of a bill in Austin that would have ended abortion in Texas. While we were down there we began thinking ‘We lived here before. Took the freedom that we had here for granted, and now we’ve been back in New York for about eight years. We’re starting to see that we don’t have that freedom.’”

Speed thinks he’ll be ready to move by around November.

“Well my customers are… we’ve been there, in business, five years in the store. So they’re sad that we’re leaving and we’re sad to be going,” Speed told Fox.

Speed also told Fox about his pro-life film, “Babies Are Murdered Here,” and the one he will be finished with before the big move, “Babies Are Still Murdered Here.”

Earlier in the year, the bookstore closed for “a day of mourning in New York State,” when the Reproductive Health Act was passed by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The controversial law is involves a significant loosening of abortion restrictions, giving women a wider set of options of when they can end their unborn baby’s life and vastly reducing the rights of unborn babies.

In response to the act, Speed’s store was flooded with book orders by those in support of what he was doing, Live Action reported.

The new law allows abortion up until the date of birth if the health of the mother is at risk. But how “health” is defined is very loose, leaving the definition open to wide interpretation, Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, wrote via the New York Post.

The new law also eliminated the consequences for killing unborn life for criminal reasons, making the death of a baby in the womb inconsequential.

Anthony Hobson won’t face charges for killing a baby in the womb that died after he stabbed the baby and mother Jennifer Irigoyen to death, Mancini wrote.

Previously, if abortions were performed outside of the law, or if a baby died in the womb through a criminal act, there were criminal penalties, Democrat & Chronicle reported. The new law removes all criminal penalties specifically aimed at such actions regarding unborn children.

“Contrary to the rhetoric of RHA advocates, abortion access does nothing to advance the rights of women,” said Jason McGuire, executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, via Democrat & Chronicle. “Rather, it invites both women and men to view unborn children—their own unborn children—as disposable objects,”

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