Nassau County, N.Y., Executive Thomas Suozzi -- who is considering whether to run in 2006 as a Democratic candidate in the New York gubernatorial primary against state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (D) -- on Tuesday proposed providing $909,000 in county funds to eight groups providing adoption services, housing services for single pregnant women and sex education, including abstinence education, the Long Island Newsday reports. The grants -- which must be approved by the county Legislature -- would be for the first year of Suozzi's three-year, $3 million plan to reduce the number of abortions in the county (Rothfeld, Long Island Newsday, 2/8). Suozzi, a Catholic who supports abortion rights, in May 2005 proposed the plan to encourage adoption, promote information about contraceptives to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and provide homes for single mothers in the county. Suozzi has said he hopes the plan can "bring together opposing sides" to create a "world with fewer abortions" (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 5/12/05). He also appointed a 70-member task force to work on the proposal (AP/7online.com, 2/7). Members of the task force include representatives of public schools, universities, hospitals, social services, religious groups and not-for-profit organizations -- including Planned Parenthood of Nassau County and Catholic Charities USA, which support and oppose abortion rights, respectively -- the New York Times reports (Lambert, New York Times, 2/6). Suozzi proposed granting:

• $83,000 to New York City-based Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children to train Nassau County health and social service workers;
  


• $97,000 to Schneider Children's Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park to provide access to adoption information;
  


• $330,000 to Catholic Charities Regina Residence in Merrick for counseling and case management and to add beds to Momma's House, which provides temporary housing for pregnant women and women with infants;
  


• $85,000 to Garden City-based Nassau BOCES for abstinence-based education and other sex education programs;
  


• $70,000 to the Cedarmore Corporation, a part of the Zion Cathedral Church of God in Christ, in Freeport, for abstinence-based education programs;
  


• $90,000 to Life Center of Long Island in Massapequa for abstinence-based education for high school students;
  


• $59,000 to Long Beach Reach to work with Long Beach Public Schools on its sex education programs; and
  


• $95,000 to PPNC for its Healthy Teen sex education program in the Uniondale public school system (Nassau County Executive release, 2/7).

Reaction
Suozzi announced the grant proposals at a news conference in Mineola with three county lawmakers and members of groups supporting his plan. "It's a big risk not only that I've taken but that all the people that are standing up here with me have taken," he said (Long Island Newsday, 2/8). Audrey Shein of PPNC said, "It's a big first step to sort of work together to sort of solve or start to solve a problem that we all deal with" (Kramer, WCBSTV.com, 2/7). However, NARAL Pro-Choice New York criticized two of Suozzi's proposed grants to groups for abstinence education programs. "Tom Suozzi should know better and not join the Bush administration in putting taxpayer dollars into [abstinence] programs that fall short of what our teens need," the group said in a release (Lambert, New York Times, 2/8). Peter Schmitt (R), the Nassau County Legislature's minority leader, who describes himself as "pro-life," said, "Leadership is not pandering to both sides of a contentious issue by using taxpayer dollars." He added, "I have pro-abortion people calling concerned that pro-life people are being funded, and pro-life people calling concerned that pro-abortion people are being funded. You can't be on both sides of the issue" (New York Times, 2/6).