PRESS RELEASE: For the Third Year, New York Assembly Fails Stillbirth Families by Blocking Paid Leave Protections

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY – June 18, 2025: For the third consecutive year, New York Assembly leadership has failed the families of our state by refusing to bring critical stillbirth paid leave legislation to a vote, blocking this essential legislation without explanation, rationale, or accountability to the New York mothers whose lives and health hang in the balance.

This unconscionable inaction means that New York will continue its cruel practice of revoking Paid Family Leave benefits from birthing people who suffered a stillbirth—literally days after birthing and burying a child, at the very moment when they are most vulnerable. Women who endure a stillbirth have been shown to face up to five times higher risk for severe, potentially life-threatening maternal complications, and New York continues to strip them of  their previously-approved paid leave during the critical postpartum weeks when the risks of maternal death are highest.

As session came to a close yesterday, there were two viable solutions, A84 and A5319A, sitting on Assembly leadership’s desks, both with broad bipartisan support, having already passed in the Senate near-unanimously and backed by a wide coalition of maternal health advocates and constituents. Bill sponsors Assemblymembers Michaelle C. Solages and Stacey Pheffer Amato fought tirelessly to advance this legislation. 

But Assembly leadership's refusal to explain or even publicly debate this issue—resorting instead to behind-closed-doors maneuvering has once again denied NY stillbirth families basic dignity and protection—benefits that the mothers themselves have paid into for years out of their own paychecks.

This is not governance; this is political gamesmanship with human lives as the stakes. And it is unacceptable.

The cost of this legislative failure is measured in real families: approximately 700 New York families will be affected this year alone. Since advocate Cassidy Perrone courageously brought this injustice to the Legislature's attention in 2022, just weeks after being retraumatized by the state following her daughter Olivia’s stillbirth 8 months into an otherwise normal and healthy pregnancy, over 2,000 New York mothers have had their paid leave unceremoniously ripped from their hands during the most physically and emotionally fraught weeks after the trauma of giving birth and losing a child in the same breath.

“While the New York Assembly under Speaker Carl Heastie offers silence and stonewalling, grieving families are left to navigate their darkest hours without the basic protections they deserve. This is not just policy failure—it is a moral failure that shames our state,” says Samantha Banerjee, NY stillbirth mother and Executive Director of PUSH. “No mother should ever be forced to choose between her physical and financial health. It is unconscionable that for three long years, and now into a fourth, New York has been callously imposing this inhumane, impossible choice on heartbroken parents, just days after giving birth and putting their child in the ground. The entire maternal health community woke up this morning to the news of NY State’s failure to act once again with disbelief and disgust.”

New Yorkers deserve transparency, accountability, and leaders who will fight for the most vulnerable among us. The Assembly's refusal to even allow a vote on this bill represents everything that is broken about our political system: backroom dealing, willful obstruction of meaningful progress, and the abandonment of those who need protection most.

We demand better. New York families deserve better. And we will not stop fighting until this injustice is corrected.

If you are a New York parent who has experienced stillbirth and had your Paid Family Leave revoked—especially since 2022—we want to hear from you. Your story matters, and your voice can help drive the change that is desperately needed. Please reach out to us so we can connect you with journalists and advocates ready to amplify your story and put pressure on those in power. Together, we can ensure that no more families suffer in silence while politicians play games with our lives.

Contact us at info@pushpregnancy.org or submit this form: bit.ly/nypfl 

For more information, visit pushpregnancy.org/nypfl

Media contact: 

Laura Evans laura@lauraevansmedia.com

Daniela Sicuranza  daniela@lauraevansmedia.com

About PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy

PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy is on a mission to end preventable stillbirth, and is not taking no for an answer. 65 babies die in the second half of pregnancy every single day in the U.S. - that’s 21,000 each year, most of them otherwise healthy, and all of them deeply loved. Many of these babies could have been saved. Working closely with medical researchers and doctors, PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy exists to eradicate preventable stillbirth in the U.S by 2035. Learn more at www.pushpregnancy.org