Abortion fight is far from over for Californians
Friday's outrageous Supreme Court ruling overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision will not end the fight over abortion rights.
Not for Americans. Nor for Californians.
The high court's decision that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the rights of women to choose to have an abortion sets up state-by-state and congressional showdowns as anti-abortion forces double down. And the battle over individual rights could be expanded far beyond abortion.
This is no time for Californians to become complacent. Their state Constitution, governor and majority of state legislators provide protection of abortion rights, but perhaps only for now.
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Californians must fall back on the state constitutional privacy protection, which has been interpreted to include the right to abortion. State lawmakers are expected to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would explicitly protect abortion. Voters should back it.
But that won't protect abortion rights in the state if Republicans take control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. While Friday's Supreme Court decision found no federal constitutional protection for abortion and left the decision to states, it explicitly also left open the possibility of federal legislative action.
With Republicans in control in Washington, they could outlaw abortions across the nation, overriding any individual state protections, including California's.
Which is why the upcoming midterm elections and the 2024 presidential race are so important. If 2016 taught us anything, it's that elections matter. Donald Trump's choice of three conservative justices to the court transformed its makeup for decades. Is there any doubt that if Hillary Clinton had been elected that Roe v. Wade would still stand?
Instead, it's a dark day for this country as women are losing control of the most basic health care decisions. Many women unable to get legal abortions in their states will die as a result. Others will flood into states where the procedure is still permitted.
As a result, California will likely become a refuge for hundreds of thousands of women from other states. For now, our leaders are preparing to make them welcome. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators have agreed to allocate tens of millions of dollars to help.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has ramped up staffing. And California lawmakers have eliminated out-of-pocket costs for abortion-related services, essentially making the procedure free starting next year for patients with health insurance.
As the scramble to protect a woman's right to choose in California escalates, the other looming question is where does this end? While most of the conservative justices insisted that Friday's decision was limited to the question of abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas foreshadowed what could come next.
In his concurring opinion to the court's reversal of the half-century-old decision in Roe v. Wade, Thomas called on the court to “reconsider all of this court's substantive due process precedents.” That includes the right of married persons to obtain contraceptives, the right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts and the right to same-sex marriage.
A few years ago, Thomas was dismissed as the far-right outlier on the Supreme Court. But as the court shifts to the right, his thinking more often prevails. As Friday's decision shows, what was once unthinkable can quickly become a real danger, for the nation and for California.