SACRAMENTO, September 16, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The California Senate gave final approval Friday to legislation to force colleges and universities to provide chemical abortion pills and now awaits a likely signature by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Last year, the legislature passed the so-called College Student Right to Access Act, which required “each public university student health center [to] offer abortion by medication techniques” and provided grants to cover the costs of any necessary equipment or training, “telehealth services” (also known as webcam abortions), and backup medical support.
Despite being reliably pro-abortion, Democrat former California governor Jerry Brown vetoed the bill on the grounds that it was “not necessary” because the “average distance to abortion providers in campus communities varies from five to seven miles, not an unreasonable distance.” This year, pro-abortion lawmakers introduced a similar measure on the expectation that Brown’s successor Newsom would be more receptive.
The current version of the bill declares abortion a “constitutional right and an integral part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care,” imposes the same mandate, and establishes a private fund that would allocate $200,000 per each campus under the University of California and the California State University systems to carry it out.
The Senate voted 28-11 to give the measure final approval on Friday, the Sacramento Bee reports. “By ensuring that abortion care is available on campus, college students will not have to choose between delaying important medical care or [sic] having to travel long distances or miss classes or work,” claimed Democrat state senator Connie Leyva, the bill’s author.
Among those opposing the bill were the state Department of Finance, which concluded that it would cost more than the funds allocated to administer it and that the state Commission on the Status of Women and Girls tasked with operating the fund would be unable to administer a program of such “size, scope, or content.”
“California legislators are recklessly experimenting with students’ lives and health by advancing a plan to force school health centers to become abortion vendors, pushing chemical abortion pills to force an intentional miscarriage,” Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins said in a statement. “These Toilet Bowl Abortions would create havoc on campuses, as girls are sent to their dorm bathrooms to bleed and pass an aborted infant in a toilet, without medical supervision or assistance. Why would California schools want to expose their students and their universities to that kind of deadly risk?”
Pro-lifers warn that even when “properly” taken, abortion pills are not only lethal to preborn children, but more dangerous to women than advertised. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns of “reports of 24 deaths of women associated with Mifeprex since the product was approved in September 2000, including two cases of ectopic pregnancy resulting in death; and several cases of severe systemic infection (also called sepsis), including some that were fatal.”
Newsom, who previously served as Brown’s lieutenant governor, is widely expected to sign the bill into law. “I have long supported that,” he told reporters of the proposal last year. “I subscribe to Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s position on that.” He has until October 13 to decide whether to sign the current version. If he does, it will take effect in January 2023 absent a legal challenge.