Mike LiPetri, the Republican challenging Rep. Tom Suozzi in Long Island’s 3rd Congressional District, has pointed to abortion rights as evidence that he’s a different kind of Republican.
“I’m a pro-choice Republican. I trust women to make choices that are right for them,” LiPetri wrote in a candidate questionnaire published by Patch on Wednesday.
His record in Albany paints a starkly different portrait.
What is LiPetri’s abortion record?
LiPetri arrived in Albany just as the Legislature took up its most sweeping reproductive rights package since New York legalized abortion in 1970. He voted against two of its marquee bills.
On Jan. 22, 2019, his first month in the state Assembly, LiPetri voted against the Reproductive Health Act, the law that enshrined the protections of Roe v. Wade in state statute and moved abortion out of New York’s criminal code.Without it, New York would have fallen back on its 1970 statute, which allowed abortion after 24 weeks only to save the patient’s life, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022.
The next day, he wrote on Facebook that he was “proud to vote NO against this radical and horrific legislation.”
In a video accompanying the post, LiPetri called the bill “late-term abortion expansion” and argued it permitted abortion “up until the point of nine months.”
That account leaves out the law’s limits. The Reproductive Health Act permits abortion after 24 weeks only when a pregnancy isn’t viable or the patient’s life or health is at risk. The life and health exceptions mirror what Roe required states to allow after viability.
On Jan. 22, LiPetri also voted against the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, which requires insurers to cover FDA-approved birth control, including emergency contraception, without cost-sharing. The bill passed the Assembly 100-39. The law wrote into state statute the contraception coverage the Affordable Care Act already required of most insurers, so New Yorkers would keep it if federal protections were ever rolled back.
That vote stands apart from his stated objection to the Reproductive Health Act, which centered on abortions later in pregnancy, and sits uneasily beside his assurance that he trusts women “to make choices that are right for them.”
How has his position changed?
Since leaving Albany, LiPetri has traded the language of “radical and horrific” legislation for a pro-choice pitch.
During a 2024 debate against Suozzi, he opposed a national abortion ban and supported codifying Roe into federal law. Earlier this month, he told CBS New York that his campaign had “split with the president” on abortion.
He still draws one boundary. “What I am against are late term abortions—that’s too extreme,” he wrote in the Patch questionnaire.
Who is backing his campaign?
LiPetri is again running on both the Republican and Conservative Party lines. The party’s 2026 legislative program calls for repealing what it calls New York’s “expanded abortion law” and permitting abortion only when the patient’s life is at risk, with no exception for rape or incest.
Last month, US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appeared at a Nassau County fundraiser for LiPetri’s campaign. Johnson is a cosponsor of the Life at Conception Act, which would extend constitutional protections to embryos from fertilization.
Where does Suozzi stand?
Suozzi, a self-described moderate who reclaimed the seat in a 2024 special election after George Santos’s expulsion from Congress, has a firmer record on abortion rights.
He consistently earned perfect scores from Reproductive Freedom for All during his first stint in Congress, and he is a cosponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would establish federal protections for abortion access. Planned Parenthood Action Fund has endorsed his reelection.
His positions haven’t always satisfied abortion rights advocates. During his earlier tenure, Suozzi drew criticism from progressives for opposing a later-term procedure that opponents call “partial-birth abortion,” and for his reluctance to roll back limits on Medicaid funding for abortion.
LiPetri’s campaign did not respond to Courier New York’s request for comment.
