California will remain a beacon for bodily autonomy and bolster abortion rights even more, state and local leaders said during a press conference in Long Beach on Friday, May 6.
State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, Attorney General Rob Bonta, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia and abortion-rights advocates gathered in the overwhelmingly progressive city to tout past and current efforts to protect the ability of women to make their own health care choices, including whether to terminate a pregnacy. The leaders sought to reassure folks, specifically women, that California will fortify abortion rights in the wake of revelations that the U.S. Supreme Court will apparently overturn its prior landmark decision in Roe v. Wade.
“Since Roe v. Wade was decided nearly 50 years ago, we knew this day would come,” Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, said during the press conference. “In fact, many of the advocates here knew this would come in the last year.”
Overturning Roe would erase the current constitutional right to an abortion and return the authority to legislate whether a woman can terminate a pregnancy back to the states.
It would also mark the crowning achievement for which abortion-rights opponents have fought for decades.
For abortion-rights proponents, however, that prospect has meant stripping away a key part of women’s equality. It would force women, they have said, to have children they don’t want, or lead those who want or need an abortion to seek potentially unsafe procedures — or travel elsewhere.
The possibility of that occurring became increasingly likely in the last couple of years, ever since Justice Amy Coney-Barrett was appointed to the bench in 2020. She was former President Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court appointee, giving Republicans a 6-3 majority.
And earlier this week, the fears of abortion-rights supporters were seemingly realized.
Politico reported on Monday evening that the Supreme Court had voted to overturn its landmark 1973 ruling in Roe, which gave women across the country the right to terminate a pregnancy under the U.S. Constitution.
Politico also published an initial draft of the majority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, who argued the court’s previous decision in Roe had been “egregiously wrong from the start,” even though the court had reaffirmed it multiple times, including in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
The Supreme Court later confirmed the draft as authentic — though it also noted that draft opinions are subject to change. The court is expected to release its final decision in Dobbs v. Mississippi Department of Health this summer.
The news, while a celebratory occasion for abortion-rights opponents, has sparked outrage among those who didn’t want to see Roe overturned. Protests have popped up nationwide, and both women’s rights advocates and Democratic politicians — and a few moderate Republicans as well — have vowed to protect abortion rights.
About 80% of Americans support a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, at least to some degree, and a majority do not want Roe to be overturned, according to a May 2020 Gallup poll.
“So many of us fought, in the state of California, to provide so many reproductive justice and freedom bills,” Gonzalez said. “Over a dozen bills have been passed to protect our rights even further.”
Gonzalez mentioned Senate Bill 245, which she authored, as an example of that work.
The bill, titled the Abortion Access Act, eliminates cost-barriers to abortion care by requiring state-licensed health care plans to cover the service without charging the patient. It was signed into law on March 22.
The senator also mentioned a recent proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-Long Beach, for an amendment to enshrine abortion rights into the California Constitution.
Bonta, for his part, also said the state is committed to fighting for “the right to an abortion and the right for women to control their own bodies free from any interference from politicians.”
Long Beach, which has played host to numerous state and national Democratic leaders in recent years because of its liberal credentials, was an obvious choice for the press conference.
LA County’s second-largest city has been has been working with Los Angeles County and Planned Parenthood to expand abortion care access in the city, said Mayor Robert Garcia.
“Abortion is health care,” Garcia said Friday. “Access to abortion is critical, in this country and across the world. This court’s reactionary and radical agenda does not stand.”
The city is focusing specifically on four initiatives, Garcia said: Enhancing the health department’s funding for abortion care, expanding training for city workers who interact with folks seeking abortions, expanding the health care workforce and creating a uniform referral system to reduce barriers to health care access in the city.
Long Beach announced those plans on Tuesday, May 3. The City Council also voted that day to add support for state bills related to abortion rights and reproductive health to its 2022 legislative agenda.
And next week, the council will weigh whether to send a letter to the Legislature supporting the proposed constitutional amendment.
The all-woman county Board of Supervisors, meanwhile, formally backed a state bill this week state bill that would make Los Angeles County a safe haven for women traveling from out of state to get an abortion. The bill would create a program through which Los Angeles County could provide abortion services to women no matter where they live — even if out of state.
And on Friday, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to convene a “Presidential Task Force for Women’s Medical Freedom.”
The task force would “establish and implement strategies for support women and girls in their time of need,” according to a letter Feuer sent the president.
The task force, under Feuer’s proposal, would work to:
- Expand clinic capacity in states that don’t make abortion illegal.
- Coordinate logistics and funding to provide housing and transportation for people traveling long distances seeking abortions.
- Fund legal defense for people who need to terminate a pregnancy and their providers who are targeted by bounty laws in states that outlaw abortions.
- Protect medical providers in states where abortion is legal and who consult with patients in other states.
- Expand and secure the right to send and receive abortion medications across state lines.
- Provide resettlement support for people who need abortions in other states and fear legal repercussions when they return home.
But despite those efforts, Gonzalez said, much work remains — for women in general, and those seeking abortion services outside the state. About half of all states in America are set to ban abortion if Roe is overturned, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Those bans will hurt people of color and low-income families the most, said Onyemma Obiekea, a policy analyst with the Black Women for Wellness Action Project.
“In a country where Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, the stripping away of the right to abortion care — an integral part of the full spectrum of reproductive health care — is down right cruel,” Obiekea said. “We will not stand idly by as we are stripped of our constitutional rights.”
Officials with the LGBTQ Center Long Beach, who were also at the press conference, also said the Supreme Court’s likely ruling could also threaten other rights.
Roe relied on the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, arguing the Constitution gave women an unenumerated right to privacy, including deciding whether to get an abortion.
Other landmark cases also relied on that line of reasoning, including Loving v. Virginia — which protected the right to interracial marriage and was used as a precedent in Roe — and Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that guaranteed the right of same-sex couples to marry.
Some legal scholars and LGBTQ advocates have warned myriad unenumerated rights, including same-sex marriage, could be overturned.
Doing so would likely empower states to decide those issues. That’s particularly concerning given the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation coming from Republican-controlled statehouses, said Eduardo Lara, Board of Directors secretary for the LGBTQ Center Long Beach.
“It is important to note the intersection of the LGBTQ+ community with reproductive justice,” Lara said in a statement after the press conference. “The arc of this political moment speaks to the intersections of what is at stake. Threats to transgender youth and their parents in Texas. Threats to LGBTQ curriculum and teachers who include lessons on sexual and gender identity in Florida.
“This is a longer arc of the backlash,” he added, “to many social justice issues and struggles that have occurred in the last decade.”
Gonzalez, for her part, said local, state and federal officials must work collaboratively to further protect Californian’s reproductive rights.
“People seeking care across the nation are going to come to California just for one provider,” she said. “We know that we have a lot of work to do, but we have to make sure that our local officials push with us.”
City News Service contributed to this report.