SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Lawmakers are working to make California a sanctuary state for abortions.
The Legislative Women’s Caucus is pushing eight bills that each works to expand access for those in California and out of state.
One of them enhances privacy laws so anyone who travels here from another state that has stricter abortion laws will not face trouble back home. Another protects women from being charged with murder for pregnancy loss. It’s rare, but it has happened in the Golden State before.
“We have 26 states out there that are looking to remove our right to control our bodies and our destinies," said Caucus Chair Assemblywoman Christina Garcia.
“We expect that there's going to be 36 million women across the U.S. who are affected and are going to be looking to travel to other states to get service including the state of California,” she said if Roe V. Wade is overturned.
That’s where the bills come in.
One will eliminate cost-sharing expenses like co-pays. Another will help expand the abortion workforce.
“We have another bill to create a pilot program to direct funds to community health clinics providing reproductive health care,” Garcia said.
Another bill will create a centralized webpage where people across the country can go for easy information on how to access an abortion in California.
The list goes on: one will create a state ran fund where people can donate their own money to help women with costs like traveling to California.
“The Women's Caucus is going to put its full power behind this package this year,” she said.
It's a package that anti-abortion leader Jonathan Keller says does everything except talk about the other healthcare options that pregnant women have.
“There's a lot of talk about increasing access to abortion, but we're not talking about increased access to maternal health care, we're not talking about reaching out to underserved communities," Keller said.
"California is not talking about flying women in from across the country to receive world-class, leading health care to deliver their children," he said. "They want to end the lives of those children."
