Strongholds plot to ensure abortion access

California, Washington and Oregon formed an alliance to ensure abortion access on the West Coast. Michigan’s leader asked the state’s highest court to rule quickly on her suit seeking to codify rights to the procedure. And in Illinois, the governor demanded a special legislative session.

As conservatives across the U.S. celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision that struck down the nationwide right to abortion, Democratic leaders moved to make sure they could ensure access to reproductive care where the politics allow it.

The high court’s ruling sets the stage for a bifurcated America when it comes to the ability to get an abortion, with access to the procedure dependent on where in the country a woman resides. Only 14 states have a

Democratic governor along with legislative bodies controlled by the party, while 23 have Republicans in control.

In liberal strongholds, the reaction to the decision was swift and fierce.

Officials in California, home to almost 40 million Americans, vowed to lead other states in serving as an abortion sanctuary. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Friday that seeks to protect out-ofstate abortion seekers from civil actions in their home states, just one of several bills aimed at expanding access.

“I want folks to know all around the rest of the country and many parts of the globe, that I hope we’re an antidote to your fear, to your anxiety, perhaps to the cynicism that many of you are feeling about the fate and future of not only our state but the world we’re living in,” Newsom said at a press briefing, flanked by Attorney General Rob Bonta, state legislators and reproductive rights advocates.

Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington’s Jay Inslee put out a joint statement ruling out cooperation with outof-state investigations to prosecute abortion cases and promising to boost access to reproductive services.

In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vowed to “fight like hell” to keep abortion legal. The state has a law on its books from 1931 that outlaws abortion, but it has been blocked by a temporary lower court ruling.

New York Attorney General Letitia James pledged her state will remain a haven, saying she’ll “work tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable and people from hostile states have access to this lifesaving care.”

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have laws that protect the right to abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit abortionrights advocacy group. Twentysix states are considered “certain or likely” to ban or limit abortion in the post-Roe era. Twenty-two of them have laws or constitutional amendments to prohibit the procedure. The other four have the political composition or took recent action that indicates they would limit access, according to Guttmacher.

States that have pledged to take in more abortion seekers now face questions abut their capacity to handle the influx, said Michele Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California Irvine, and author of “Policing the Womb.” In California, for instance, there could be a nearly 3,000 percent increase in the number of out-ofstate women of reproductive age who could now find their nearest clinic in the state, according to Guttmacher.

“What states may seek to do is to be more creative and progressive in terms of who’s allowed to engage in reproductive health care, and providing economic support,” Goodwin said. “They can also protect doctors who perform abortions from being criminally punished.”

Newsom