Southern California responds to Supreme Court ruling

For Christel Reyna, an Eastvale resident and activist, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the right to an abortion was deeply personal.

She was immediately reminded of the trauma she endured when she was just 19 years old and sexually assaulted in a Los Angeles parking lot. Once she realized she had gotten pregnant, Reyna chose to have an abortion.

But the high court’s decision means states can strip that option from women, including those who have been assaulted.

“What are they going to say to a woman that goes through what I went through? Where are the options? This is horrible,” Reyna said.

It was a historic decision that reverberated across the nation Friday morning. The 5-4 ruling from the court’s conservative majority overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision caused immediate visceral reactions spanning the gamut from those who worry what rights the court could dismantle next to those who celebrated what they see as protections for the unborn.

The decision could be a life-changing one for many women of child-bearing age.

“I share the searing fury felt by the majority of Americans who are angry and scared for what this Supreme Court decision means — for the lives of their daughters, granddaughters and loved ones,” said state Senate President pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins, D-San Diego. “With this ruling, the Supreme Court has turned its back on safety and equality. But in California, those values remain firmly rooted. Here, pregnant individuals and their families will always be entitled to dignity, understanding and reproductive choice.”

In Long Beach, Lisa Del Sesto, a coordinator for the Long Beach-Orange County chapter of Women Rising, said she expects California lawmakers to follow through on those pledges.

“California is strengthening its resolve to ensure the rights of women and that abortion protections are expanded,” she said. “I believe California will become an oasis for reproductive rights.”

Del Sesto also said she hopes Friday’s ruling will mobilize Democratic voters, as well as independents and others who want to protect abortion rights, to keep the Democratic Party in the majority so there’s a chance to codify Roe into law.

The alternative is worse, Del Sesto said.

“I don’t think Republicans will stop here,” she said. “They will try to codify a ban on abortions (nationally), which would be a tragedy.”

Betsy Jenkins, a longtime Laguna Beach community volunteer who has for years helped local organizations and nonprofits, said she was devastated when the decision was announced.

“I hope and trust that more states will enact laws, especially in California, to counter and render mute the impact for women in America,” she said.

Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino has already seen an influx of out-of-state patients seeking services in recent years, particularly as states such as Texas have pushed largescale abortion bans.

Dr. Janet Jacobson, the organization’s medical director, said the local offices of Planned Parenthood saw about four times more outof-state patients prior to Friday’s decision — a “trickle effect,” she called it. But, Jacobson predicts the Southern California’s Planned Parenthoods will now see an influx of about 40 times more out-of-state patients.

“We’ve been preparing at PPOSBC for about two years. It seemed with the Supreme Court that Roe could indeed be overturned,” she said.

Jacobson, in particular, is concerned about patients who are in the middle of an abortion process. She said she’s been wrangling calls with her counterparts in states that have already or are preparing to restrict abortion to help transfer those patients to other places.

Her organization has created an abortion aid program (a way to help out-ofstate people arrange travel, accommodations and more), provided additional training for staff, increased the number of patients that can be seen, and planned to open a new health center offering a slate of reproductive health care services in San Bernardino County. The new facility will tentatively open early next year.

But also, Jacobson has to ensure patients in California are still being served, she said.

Meanwhile, local antiabortion activists and faith leaders praised the Supreme Court’s decision.

Diocese of San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas said the Supreme Court’s decision was “an affirmation that every precious life created by God should be protected under law,” and he called for opposition to California’s push to expand abortion accessibility.

“So many millions of lives,” Rojas said, “have been extinguished under the shadow of Roe v. Wade these past 50 years.”

“We are called in our baptism to protect life at every stage,” he said. “This is such a moment.”

And Archbishop José H. Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who leads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, also hailed the ruling as “historic.”

“For nearly 50 years, America has enforced an unjust law that has permitted some to decide whether others can live or die; this policy has resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of preborn children, generations that were denied the right to even be born,” Gomez said in a joint statement with Archbishop E. Lori of

Baltimore.

“The end of Roe is the beginning of a new phase in the fight for equal protection for all human beings,” Mary Rose Short, director of outreach for California Right to Life, said in an email. “While our current California Legislature will do nothing to legally protect unborn children, we will continue to educate the public about the development of the child in the womb and about the barbaric reality of abortion, in order to change minds, save lives, and hasten the day when every child will be protected by law.”

Authority to regulate abortion rests with the political branches, not the courts, Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the opinion, wrote, so therefore “the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the court should revisit decisions that codified same-sex marriage and contraception access.

Thomas’ opinion only underscores how the ruling “has implications for LGBTQ people and other groups of people,” said Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, the first openly gay person of color elected to Congress. “We have an unelected Supreme Court showing little restraint in terms of attempting to set back the politics of our country, the politics of inclusion and equality. That to me is very ominous.”

The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach, too, said it was concerned about the ramifications this decision could have, calling it “horrifying, appalling, cowardly and cruel.”

“With this ruling, our most basic rights like marriage, health care, access to sports, and sexuality are under the threat of elimination,” the center said in a statement.

Brad Dacus, president and founder of the conservative, California-based Pacific Justice Institute, vowed his organization would assist state legislatures in restricting abortion access.

“This is a landmark day for Americans across this great country for the defense of those who cannot defend themselves,” Dacus said.

But for Tansu Philip, a Redlands resident who coowns a small business in San Bernardino, the move was “really disappointing and depressing” — even in spite of a similar draft opinion leaked last month.

“Knowing something’s coming doesn’t prepare you for how bad it is when it actually becomes official,” she said. “Even though in my mind I knew it would happen, it’s extra devastating knowing it’s official. It feels like there’s nothing we can do.”