BUFFALO, N.Y. – Should women have access to free tampons in every public bathroom in New York State?
A downstate lawmaker appropriately unveiled plans to introduce a bill doing just that on International Women’s Day.
Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal is the same lawmaker who successfully pushed to get rid of the tax on tampons and pads in 2016.
Now, she's proposing a bill which would require any office, school, university, doctor’s office, restaurant, state office, stadium — any sort of business she says — to stock their bathrooms with free tampons and pads. Rosenthal has bills in Albany right now to require prisons, schools, and homeless shelters to have free tampons and pads, but this one covers every bathroom.
2 On Your Side Skyped with the Assemblywoman Friday and asked her what she would say to people who disagree with her.
"Well, you know, this involves half the population. Women have not been in charge traditionally, otherwise, we'd already have this kind of thing in place. The fact is that everyone provides toilet paper, there should be no question about the need to provide tampons and pads," Rosenthal said. "If we truly want to support women in this state, we will provide the bare necessity, and no one can dispute that tampons and pads are medical necessities."
Rosenthal says she has gotten a lot of positive feedback so far on the proposal, especially from women.