Nov. ballot question would guarantee right to abortion
State measure in response to recent U.s. supreme Court ruling
California voters will be asked to approve a ballot measure during November’s general election that would amend the state constitution to guarantee the right to an abortion.
Senate Constitutional Amendment 10 was crafted by the state Legislature, with backing from Gov. Gavin Newsom, and added to the November electoral lineup.
The ballot measure was a direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which had protected the right to abortion nationwide since 1973. Now, each state will be able to set its own policies regarding access to abortion and the procedure itself.
California currently has a legal right to an abortion before the fetus becomes “viable,” typically at 24 weeks. The constitutional amendment would add another layer of legal protection to the right to an abortion. The amendment would explicitly say that Californians can have abortions and use birth control under their constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection under the law.
Constitutional Amendment 10 would, if approved by voters in November, codify the state’s current set of progressive reproductive rights, which grant anyone of reproductive age “the fundamental right to choose to bear a child or to choose and to obtain an abortion.”
Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said current legal rights regarding abortion in California could be held up in the courts by “hostile” legal attacks.
“We know from history that abortion bans don’t end abortion,” said Assembly Speaker
Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood), a co-author of SCA 10, in a media interview. “They only outlaw safe abortions. We must preserve the fundamental reproductive rights of women here in California because they are under attack elsewhere.”
opposition to the amendment
Outnumbered Republicans in the state Legislature opposed the amendment, arguing it is too broad and would allow for abortions late in pregnancy when a fetus is capable of surviving outside of the womb.
California Family Council, a Fresno-based anti-abortion group, filed an opposition argument to the bill, writing: “Life is a human right for every life, no matter how small or at what stage of development. Equality begins in the womb and this bill completely ignores that fact.” After the Legislature voted to add the question to the November ballot, the council’s president, Jonathan Keller, said in a statement that it was “extreme, even for a state like California.”
The amendment would declare that “The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives … Nothing herein narrows or limits the right to privacy or equal protection.”
The governor and Legislature are making aggressive moves to accomplish a stated goal to make California a “sanctuary” for women seeking abortion whether they are state residents or coming from states that have or will ban or place restrictions on abortion.
Newsom has signed a recently approved bill that would shield California abortion providers and volunteers from lawsuits filed in other states based on those states’ enforcement of abortion bans.
The recently approved $300 billion 2022-23 state budget contains more than $200 million in new spending to expand access to abortions in California. The money would pay for abortions for women who can’t afford them, scholarships for people studying how to provide abortions and money to help women pay for logistics like travel, lodging and childcare — but only within the state of California.
“California’s budget addresses the state’s most pressing needs, and prioritizes getting dollars back into the pockets of millions of Californians who are grappling with global inflation and rising prices of everything from gas to groceries,” Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Toni G. Atkins (D-San Diego) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) said in a joint statement.