Abortion access defines key New York congressional races [Video]

On the night before he was first elected to Congress in August 2022, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, flanked by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other campaign supporters, was delivering the final speech of his campaign.

His address was very different than what he might have imagined it would be a few months earlier.

Ryan — a Democrat who graduated from West Point and served two tours of duty in Iraq — stood in front of a wall-sized American flag in a room often used for weddings and corporate dinners and talked mostly about abortion rights.  

He spoke of “fundamental freedoms and rights being ripped away,” adding “control over (women’s) lives and bodies have been ripped away.”  

“Some of the biggest threats in our country’s history are coming from right here at home,” he warned.

Ryan’s special election victory in a closely divided U.S. House district in the Hudson Valley region of New York was the first …