Campus abortion pills get state OK
SACRAMENTO — As states across the country clamp down on abortion access, California moved in the opposite direction Friday by becoming the first in the nation to require its public universities to provide abortion pills at campus health centers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB24, which requires that the health centers at 11 University of California and 23 California State University campuses offer medical abortions by 2023.
Medical abortions, which now account for about a third of all abortions, involve taking two pills over two days to induce a miscarriage. Unlike surgical abortions, they can be performed only in the first 10 weeks of a pregnancy.
The new law does not require campus health centers to offer surgical abortions. A medical abortion is different from the morningafter pill, which is already available at many university health centers and can be taken after sex to block a pregnancy before it begins.
“As other states and the
federal government go backward, restricting reproductive freedom, in California we are moving forward, expanding access and reaffirming a woman’s right to choose,” Newsom said in a statement.
The campaign to provide abortion pills at California colleges started four years ago at UC Berkeley, when student activists unsuccessfully lobbied the administration to offer the service at the campus health center.
Sen. Connie Leyva, DChino (San Bernardino County), took up the issue in the Legislature in 2017, arguing that providing abortion pills at campus health centers would help young women who couldn’t get to outside providers because of transportation and financial barriers. But her original bill was vetoed last year by thenGov. Jerry Brown, who wrote that it was not necessary because medical abortion services are “widely available offcampus.”
Supporters contend it’s not enough. A study by UC researchers published last year estimated that between 322 and 519 students at California public universities obtain a medical abortion each month, but that nearly twothirds of university campuses are more than 30 minutes away from the closest abortion provider by public transportation. After an initial appointment to obtain the abortion pills, medical professionals typically recommend a followup visit within two weeks.
Leyva revived her proposal this year, after Newsom declared during his gubernatorial campaign last fall that he would have signed the measure .
“By ensuring that abortion care is available on campus, college students will not have to choose between delaying important medical care or needing to travel long distances or even missing classes or work,” she said in a statement Friday.
Approving SB24 thrusts Newsom into a national battle.
Sensing a favorable political climate under President Trump and a conservative U.S. Supreme Court, Republican legislators elsewhere have raced to enact restrictions that would virtually eliminate abortions in their states. They include an Alabama measure that reclassifies performing an abortion as a felony and Georgia’s “fetal heartbeat bill” that makes abortions illegal after about six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.
The measures have prompted legal challenges that may give the high court an opportunity to revisit the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide. On Friday, the court agreed to review a 2014 Louisiana law that opponents say would force most of the state’s abortion clinics to close.
Liberal states have responded to the spreading restrictions with efforts to expand and protect abortion rights. In May, Newsom wrote a letter “welcoming women to California to fully exercise their reproductive rights.”
California is also leading a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a rule banning federal funding for organizations that perform abortions or consult with women on how to obtain them. The regulation has forced Planned Parenthood out of a federal family planning program, a major financial hit to its clinics.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, slammed the abortion pill law as an effort to rehabilitate the image of abortions and make them dangerously easy to obtain.
“This is about a fundamental transformation of the abortion industry,” she said, “and making it more commonplace.”
She said her organization was already planning lawsuits involving staffers at campus health centers with religious objections to working at an abortion provider and students who did not want their fees to fund abortions.
Although they did not formally take a position on the medical abortion bill, UC and CSU have both expressed concerns about the idea, particularly the costs associated with providing the service and whether those would have to be passed on to students.
Many health centers would need to buy ultrasound machines, train staff on how to use them, set up 24hour telephone hot lines in case of an emergency, and secure admitting privileges with local hospitals for students who experience complications. UC also raised the possibility that antiabortion activists could pose a security risk to campuses where abortion pills are available.
Abortion rights supporters have raised more than $10 million in private funding to pay for staff training, equipment and security upgrades. The new California law otherwise directs the health centers to cover abortion pills as they would any other treatment.