California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said his state will become an abortion “sanctuary” if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that created a right to abortion.
“We’ll be a sanctuary,” Newsom said last week, according to the Associated Press (AP). “We are looking at ways to support the inevitability and looking at ways to expand our protections.”
The California Future of Abortion Council (CA FAB), composed of over 40 abortion industry and advocacy groups, has released a report containing a list of 45 recommendations for the state legislature to consider if the Court overturns Roe, including a way to pay for travel, accommodations, and the procedure itself for women coming into California from other states that might ban abortion.
The Council, led by a steering committee that includes Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the office of State Sen. Toni G. Atkins, California Senate President pro Tempore, developed its “blueprint” to help “other state legislatures looking to protect and expand access to abortion,” a statement at Planned Parenthood said.
The report states:
It is imperative that California take the lead, live up to its proclamation as a “Reproductive Freedom State,” and be ready to serve anyone who seeks abortion services in the state. We are releasing the following Recommendations to Protect, Strengthen, and Expand Abortion Services in California – a list of legislative, executive, and administrative actions for state policymakers to implement in order to meet the needs of people seeking abortions.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, 26 states “are certain or likely to ban abortion” if the Supreme Court overturns Roe, with the number of women and girls seeking abortions in California anticipated to grow from 46,000 to 1.4 million, depending on the nature of the abortion bans in their states of residence.
“When I ran clinic services for a women’s health center, I saw countless individuals who needed information, services, and support,” Atkins said in the Planned Parenthood statement, adding:
Working with the [CA] FAB Council, my colleagues and I will ensure Californians and people from every state can get the reproductive health services they need in a safe and timely way—and that all our rights remain enshrined in law. This is crunch time, but we will not be dragged into the past. California will keep leading for the future.
The recommendations in the report include the following areas of focus, many of which center on funding and legal protection for abortion providers and recognition of the role Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) in public schools plays in normalizing abortion:
- Funds to support the work of abortion fund organizations, abortion providers, and other community-based organizations
- Investment in the development of a centralized data site with abortion access information
- Funding for infrastructure, capacity building, coordination, and safety measures for providers, clinics, patients, and funds.
- Create and fund an uncompensated care program to reimburse abortion providers
- Improve Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for abortion providers
- Establish a supplemental payment program for providers
- Ensure that commercial plans have fair and reasonable rates
- Optimize loan repayment to increase retention and recruitment of clinicians who provide abortion
- Provide financial support for abortion service providers to access affordable insurance coverage.
- Create and fund a grant program for abortion training and for providers serving medically underserved populations
- Enact legal protections from civil and criminal liability as well as disciplinary action to the extent possible for clinicians that provide abortions to patients
- Protect people from prosecutions and criminalization of abortion or pregnancy loss
- Adequately fund implementation and monitoring of California’s existing comprehensive sexual health education (CSE) mandate.
- Require school districts to participate in the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) and include a module on sexual and reproductive health care as one of the core survey modules.
Mark Lee Dickson, director of Right To Life of East Texas and founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative, said in comments to Breitbart News that as California prepares to become a “sanctuary” for abortion, “Texas has already become a sanctuary for ‘political refugees from California.”
“Over the past several years I have met many from the state of California who have moved to Texas because California does not represent their beliefs and values,” he said. “To those people I say, ‘Texas welcomes you!’”
Dickson observed that, with 42 Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn having passed ordinances that outlaw abortion within their limits, “More and more cities throughout Texas are saying, ‘We do not want abortion here.’ ‘We do not want babies to be murdered in our city.’” He went on to explain:
There are mayors and councils who are listening to their people and willing to pass these ordinances themselves as they give the people what they want without having to go through a long and drawn out election process. It’s an amazing thing to see. I think it is time every city in Texas outlaws abortion and becomes a Sanctuary City for the Unborn. I think it is time for the entire State of Texas to become a ‘Sanctuary State for the Unborn.’
If California wants to be a ‘Sanctuary State for Abortion’ then so be it – it will be to their own detriment. Thankfully, if the people of their state do not want to live in a ‘Sanctuary State for Abortion’ they have the choice to move to a state which does not provide that atmosphere for their residents.
“Born Californians get a choice to leave their state, unborn Californians are not afforded that luxury,” he observed.
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