Catherine Lederer-Plaskett: Abortion Rights, Local Elections & Barry McGoey

Letter to The Hudson Independent | Catherine Lederer-Plaskett | 5/19/26

Elec­tions are about choos­ing can­di­dates we can trust to rep­re­sent our val­ues. That is why I am vot­ing for Barry Mc­Goey for Green­burgh Town Su­per­vi­sor in the De­mo­c­ra­tic Pri­mary on June 23rd.

Barry has the pro­fes­sion­al­ism, ex­pe­ri­ence, and val­ues crit­i­cal to ex­tra­dit­ing Green­burgh from its dire fi­nan­cial cri­sis, the fault of which rests squarely on the shoul­ders of the 35-year, 17-term in­cum­bent Town Su­per­vi­sor whose fail­ures are well doc­u­mented in a foren­sic au­dit avail­able on the Town web­site, and in many news ar­ti­cles.

As Pres­i­dent and CEO of WCLA (Westch­ester Coali­tion for Le­gal Abor­tion) – Choice Mat­ters, I have spent the last 20 years work­ing to elect in­di­vid­u­als who un­equiv­o­cally sup­port com­pre­hen­sive re­pro­duc­tive health care. This re­quire­ment is not in­stead of other qual­i­fi­ca­tions but in ad­di­tion to them.

The be­liefs and back­ground of elected of­fi­cials shape the de­ci­sions they make every day. We can­not af­ford lead­ers will­ing to com­pro­mise fun­da­men­tal civil rights. Barry has com­mit­ted to ap­point­ing qual­i­fied, pro-choice res­i­dents to Green­burgh’s zon­ing and plan­ning boards, rec­og­niz­ing how im­por­tant lo­cal gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions are to pro­tect­ing health­care ac­cess and per­sonal free­doms.

We have seen first­hand why this mat­ters. The New Rochelle Planned Par­ent­hood Cen­ter ex­ists solely due to the for­ti­tude of a for­mer mayor who with­stood a pres­sure cam­paign from re­li­gious or­ga­ni­za­tions de­mand­ing re­stric­tive zon­ing changes to block the clinic. The Green­burgh Planned Par­ent­hood clinic is lo­cated on a read­ily pro­tected site as the re­sult of pro­pos­als ap­proved by the res­i­dents who served on the Town’s zon­ing and plan­ning boards.

In the 1990s, a re­pro­duc­tive health­care provider in Dobbs Ferry faced ag­gres­sive anti-abor­tion protests or­ga­nized by ex­trem­ists. Lo­cal of­fi­cials, law en­force­ment, and com­mu­nity mem­bers worked to­gether to pro­tect pa­tients and re­store or­der. Those events demon­strated how crit­i­cal lo­cal lead­er­ship can be in de­fend­ing rights and pub­lic safety.

Our re­pro­duc­tive rights and ac­cess were se­cured by in­di­vid­u­als serv­ing in lo­cal gov­ern­ment and law en­force­ment. The re­spon­si­bil­ity they hold is es­pe­cially im­por­tant now, as we wit­ness the shred­ding of rights we thought were se­cured. The peo­ple we elect lo­cally mat­ter.

Green­burgh is in des­per­ate need of a new leader – and Barry Mc­Goey is that per­son. Bar­ry’s back­ground in law, ac­count­ing, and la­bor re­la­tions are crit­i­cal to lead­ing us off of this fis­cal cliff. His qual­i­fi­ca­tions are sup­ported by a firm com­mit­ment to up­hold­ing and pro­tect­ing our rights and val­ues here in Green­burgh.

Af­ter 35 years, Green­burgh must choose a new di­rec­tion, and Barry Mc­Goey is pre­pared to pro­vide it.

Catherine Lederer-Plaskett (she/her)

President, WCLA – Choice Matters

[FULL LETTER]