I want to thank you for coming together today. I am here to outline my “Common Sense for the Common Good” agenda, which is designed to reduce abortions in Nassau County by funding efforts to help prevent unintended pregnancies and to support women who face unintended pregnancies.

More than 30 years ago Roe vs. Wade confirmed the legal protection of abortion. Since that time, people on both sides of this issue – and people caught in the middle - have expended tremendous energy, money and emotion in this ever-escalating debate. Today I want to try and convert the same energy, passion and resources that fuel the debate, into a common effort.

To be successful we need to recognize that women are often unfairly judged regardless of the choices they make regarding an unplanned pregnancy and men are often let off the hook. Women who choose abortion have their morality questioned. Women who choose to put a baby up for adoption have their maternal instincts questioned and women who carry an unplanned pregnancy to full term when unmarried or financially insecure are often labeled irresponsible. In our culture, boys will be boys, men will be men, but women are too often and too readily judged. Our efforts should not be to judge women. Rather, our goal should be to support women.

I have found that despite the often unfair and unproductive caricatures of the people on both sides of this issue, defenders of the “pro-choice” and “pro-life” viewpoints are usually intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate and religious people – on both sides.

Despite the quality of the people engaged whether it has been at the dinner table or in the halls of congress the abortion debate has generated more heat than light – as a result we have “hardened our hearts” and have failed to recognize that working together there is so much we could accomplish in pursuit of the common good.

I am passionate about many things and while I believe our debate about subjects like abortion or a host of issues revolving around the subject of life and death will remain passionate, we should not let our strongly held beliefs blind us to our common obligation to try and help others. Again, women facing an unintended pregnancy deserve our support, not our judgment. People who want to adopt need our assistance, not more expense or bureaucracy and, teenagers and adults immersed in a culture that hypes “sex without consequences” on TV, in movies, and in advertising 24 hours a day, need our guidance to try and avoid unintended pregnancies, not invective laced debate.

So thank you again for being here. Today even as some of us may disagree on some very fundamental points of view, perhaps we can agree to leave here today ready to work with one another to get good things done. Perhaps we will leave here today recognizing that while too many people can’t help but argue, too many people simply need our help.

I understand that as a man, I will always lack the life experience of women who do, or could, confront this profound, complex and probably the most difficult question in their own lives.

But as a person, especially a person in public life, I feel I must try and articulate my ideas and hopefully provide some leadership to both men and women.

I know this subject makes many of us uncomfortable – as a committed Democrat, Catholic and public servant, I share your discomfort.

As a Democrat I do not often find it easy to talk with other Democrats about our need to affirm our commitment to the respect for life and how we need to emphasize our party’s firm belief in the worth of every human being.

As a Catholic I do not often find it easy to talk with other Catholics about my feeling that abortion should and will remain safe and legal and that we should instead focus our efforts on creating a better world where there are fewer unplanned pregnancies, and where women who face unplanned pregnancies receive greater support and where men take more responsibility for their actions.

I believe our discomfort has contributed to our failure thus far to bring Catholics and non-Catholics, Democrats and Republicans, and everyone else together to focus our efforts and energy on a common goal.

One of the great things about public service is that it gives you an opportunity not only to figure out where you stand on an issue but also to make decisions that can have an impact on the problem. It’s especially true here at the County level – where much of what we do is to provide health and human services for people throughout their lives. In fact, along with public safety, health and human service is where the County devotes most of its resources. I’m extremely grateful for that opportunity.

I am asking the Nassau Legislature to join me by supporting my “Common Sense for the Common Good” plan by allocating $3 million dollars of Nassau County’s surplus to be spent over the next 3 years – $1 million a year.

It’s not an idle matter. Here in Nassau County, there are around 22,000 reported pregnancies every year – and 17 percent of these pregnancies, over 3,600 are voluntarily terminated. That’s 1 in 6. I know that those statistics represent simply too much hardship in our midst.

The funding will be spent to address two separate elements: 1) First, we want to give women who face an unintended pregnancy a greater range of all their choices. 2) Second, we want to do more to prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place.

Regarding the first element I am proposing to use $400,000 per year to support Homes for Single Mothers and $200,000 per year to promote adoptions in Nassau County.

Regarding preventing unintended pregnancies I am proposing $400,000 per year to support educational efforts.

The first element: When I was Mayor of Glen Cove, I saw an opportunity to bring people together around a common effort. That is what inspired me to help find a home for “Momma’s House,” a program for mothers and babies. It was first established by Pat Shea in 1986, but they did not have a permanent residence. In 1997, as mayor, I helped locate a new “Momma’s House” in St. Rocco’s Parish.

Momma’s House allows women between 17 and 21 to live there for two years, while they are pregnant and with their newborn children. And during that time, Pat and the others who work there help the women and children find a good place to live. They also help the mothers learn more about parenting, as well as providing them with daycare and assistance with their own education and in finding good jobs. Momma’s House is great; we just need more like it in our County today.

In addition, Nassau is also home to the Regina House, an Oblate Sisters facility for single mothers under 21. We need to provide similar support for single mothers over the age of 21 who find themselves alone.

Homes for single mothers are a small step, but I think they make a real difference. Not only in helping bring miracles into the lives of the woman and children they serve, but also in helping bring together people from both sides of this debate on a common service to help woman who need our help. Anyone who really wishes to reduce the number of abortions has an obligation to help those women who choose not to have an abortion yet find themselves alone.

Regardless of one’s point of view, I believe we can all agree that women who find themselves pregnant and who have little means to support themselves should be provided for in some fashion, whether it is through pre-natal care services at hospitals and health clinics or, when necessary, by letting them live in a loving home staffed by people who care for them and have the expertise to help them through pregnancy and in the early days of parenthood. In those cases where women do give up their newborn child for adoption, these homes can be a warm and friendly place for those babies to be cared for while they await their adoptive parents.

I am also asking our friends in local towns and villages in Nassau County to work with the non-profit community to cut through red tape in order to expedite locating these homes.

Next, we need to promote adoption. When I first started to investigate the idea of promoting adoption I like many of you did not know how people go about adopting children. Most of the stories I hear about adoption are of children from foreign counties. Everyone is in favor of adoption, we hear about it all the time, but, I was shocked to discover that last year there are only 300 adoptions in Nassau County.

I am proposing that we spend $200,000 per year on public education programs to educate both women who may find themselves pregnant and are not aware of all the prenatal care, birth and adoption related services that are available to them, and to educate families who might be interested about the adoption option in our region.

Think about the difference. Would there be more children available for adoption if women and those who loved them had more information about the adoption alternative? We do not know because until now we have not as a matter of policy targeted that kind of information in a comprehensive manner to women who face an unintended pregnancy.

At the same time, we can also do a better job educating families about the fact that they can adopt children. We need to help potential adoption parents avoid unnecessary expenses and bureaucracy. Parents should be able to adopt children without traveling half way around the world. I know a couple who adopted a beautiful baby girl not so long ago. People ask them all the time, “where did she come from?” expecting to hear something like “Peru” or “Costa Rica,” and they always enjoy responding, “She comes from the Bronx.” And it took them only nine months between the time they filed an application to the time their new daughter arrived in their home. And it cost them $10,000.

Furthermore, in the 1990’s the president proposed and the Congress adopted a tax credit of $10,000 for many families that choose to adopt children. Think about it, an actual credit, not just a deduction, and think of how few people are aware of it. That is part of the message we want to get across to families who might be interested in adoption, but are worried about the cost.

Next, “Common Sense for the Common Good” will support family planning programs. We will help a variety of groups, from faith-based to other non-profits; and from those that promote abstinence and natural family planning to ones which advise people on birth control options. We will provide up to $400,000 dollars per year for three years for such programs to better educate boys and girls, and men and women about the need to try and avoid unintended pregnancies.

I believe that the greater the number of solutions, the greater our chances of solving the problem. That is why we will offer grants to a wide range of organizations to use however they wish to achieve the goal.

I recognize that the support of family planning programs is the one part of my Agenda that will not be ideal for either of the two primary sides in the current debate. The Catholic Church, for example, does not support artificial contraception; rather, it encourages abstinence and natural family planning. So there will be some who oppose this particular aspect of the plan. At the same time, there are some who support the right of women to choose who will say that this part of my Agenda falls short because they believe that abstinence education and natural family planning are not effective by themselves.

The family planning part of this program is, I believe, a common sense approach, fashioned solely for the purpose of fulfilling the overall goal. We will cut back on unwanted pregnancies – and abortions – by giving people information about family planning, including abstinence, natural family planning and contraception.

Some may say there are already such a multitude of family planning programs. Why add more? My answer is simple: we have not yet done enough. And the statistics prove my point. The majority of abortions that occur do so because the woman did not want to get pregnant, and they did. Many of those pregnancies need not occur if women and men had more information about family planning and had easier and cheaper access to family planning services.

Finally we must do a better job of asking some basic questions: Why do women choose abortion in the first place? Fear of the stigma or the economic burden of single motherhood? Concerns regarding the effect of a child on career or life plans? Worry about affording good prenatal medical care or housing?

These are all valid questions – and if we can answer them with more specificity, perhaps we will do more to reduce the necessity for abortions. That is why I am forming a task force to oversee this program and to, among other things, propose to me how we can, in an appropriate manner, better understand why women choose abortion and what if anything can be done to better address women’s needs.

These are concrete steps that we believe will have a real impact. In the coming weeks we will provide more information about these grants and how to apply.

So, that is my plan; that is “Common Sense for the Common Good”. If we are successful, as I believe we will be, we will look for new and even better ways to expand this program here in our County.

I also hope that you will support me in this effort, just as you have shown your support of a new kind of dialogue in this longstanding debate over the legality of abortion by coming here today. I do not want to make an argument about abortion; I want to make a difference in the number of abortions. We can go forward even if we can’t agree. We can have the same goal even if we do not share the same beliefs.

I put together the details of the “Common Sense for the Common Good” Agenda over the course of the past several months. But I have been putting together this kind of speech over the course of my entire life. It is something I have been thinking about and praying about for many, many years.

I told you earlier about how I often, like many of you, have felt uncomfortable discussing this topic. But for all the times I have been uneasy around this topic, I can tell you this is one time when I am not uncomfortable at all, because I am speaking from my heart and from the foundations of who I am; and I am also speaking on behalf of people who elected me to do my best to make Nassau County an even better place to live than it is today. I am inspired to make this proposal to you today by my constituents and by my conscience.

I hope you will leave from this place with the same sense of common purpose that brought you here. I hope, too, that this discussion has perhaps encouraged you to stay involved as we forge this new path, not to the left or to the right, but straight ahead, to a world with fewer abortions.

We may not soon resolve the matters which divide us, but we can agree to make progress on that which we share in common.

I hope and pray that “Common Sense for the Common Good” is something we do share in common. I do believe it has the power to make a positive difference in Nassau County. I believe, too, that it has the power to bring us together to get good things done.

We have to realize that far more unites us than divides us, not only when it comes to this issue, but so many others.

It’s time we used a little common sense to find some common ground on this complicated issue.

And, hopefully, we are starting today.

Thank you.