After Texas’ abortion ban, California must fight like hell to protect reproductive rights

The future of reproductive rights in America looks grim.

It is now almost certain that the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority will overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision which protects the personal choice to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. We know, however, that abortion rights are human rights. As a state where reproductive freedom is afforded to all, California must do absolutely everything in its power to protect critical abortion services that serve people from in and out of the state.

In a 5-4 vote on Wednesday night, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law that effectively shuts the door to abortion access in the state. Senate Bill 8, which took effect Tuesday night, bans all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — a point so early in the first trimester that many women don’t even know they’re pregnant.

“The Court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligations to protect not only the rights of women, but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent. “(It) is a breathtaking act of defiance — of the Constitution, of this Court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas.”

It’s a devastating blow to constitutionally-protected reproductive rights, and a gross abuse of power by religious extremists and Texas Republicans who falsely decry big government. Texas is now the first state to successfully ban abortion early in pregnancy since Roe was decided nearly 50 years ago. It won’t be the last. By refusing to block SB 8, the Supreme Court gave the green light to other states eager to follow suit, signaling the beginning of the end for the landmark Roe decision.

SB 8 comes with a cruel twist: It will not be enforced by the state; rather, it will be enforced by private citizens who are given a financial incentive to sue people suspected of providing or aiding abortions. That includes everyone from health care providers performing the actual abortion to folks who drive a friend seeking an abortion to a clinic. As if this law weren’t sinister enough, it encourages private citizens to spy on each other.

The law is purposefully written in this way so that any Texan who objects to SB 8 has no specific official or governmental body they can sue to stop the law from taking effect.

“In effect, the Texas legislature has deputized the state’s citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors’ medical procedures,” Sotomayor wrote.

Making California safer

Here in California, where 70% of residents do not want Roe overturned, our reproductive rights could still be in jeopardy. Abortion advocates predict that abortion access will be difficult if not impossible to obtain in some states very soon, and although California has state statutory and constitutional rights that protect abortion access, the state is still subject to federal rules.

That means federal restrictions on public funding for abortions would affect our state. Among Planned Parenthood health services’ patients, more than 85% are either dependent on Medicaid or are uninsured and covered through charity care, according to Jodi Hicks, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California (PPAC).

“All of that is always at risk,” Hicks said.

“In California, we have to be really careful, we don’t live in a vacuum,” said Lisa Matsubara, general counsel and vice president of policy at PPAC. “There are ways in which the restrictions on funding for abortion does impact acess in our state. In another sense, we want to make sure that we’re here to provide services for people who may not be able to access services in their state.”

The immediate concern for California, however, is safety. Abortion advocates suspect that states like California and New York — where legislators have passed policies that expand abortion access — will be targeted by aggressive, hostile and mobilized pro-life activist groups.

Over the last year, more than 7,000 out-of-state patients sought out Planned Parenthood centers in California. As other states attempt to follow in Texas’ path, forcing people to drive farther and farther to access abortion care, California’s ability to provide these critical services becomes even more crucial.

Here in Sacramento, people seeking abortions have been followed from the bus stops outside of clinics and harassed, Hicks said.

“The new recommendations are to get full bulletproof glass,” she said.

Right now in California we have one immediate opportunity to safeguard abortion access: Voting “no” in the current recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been a vocal supporter of reproductive rights.

If Newsom is successfully recalled, Californians could have a Republican governor who believes abortion is murder. Top-polling GOP candidate Larry Elder has said Roe was wrongly decided. Fierce Republican opposition to abortion access, as in the case of SB 8, makes this a particularly perilous time for California to take a chance on a GOP governor.

Many saw this coming

Of course, those who disproportionately suffer under abortion restrictions are low-income or people of color. Restricting access to abortions doesn’t eliminate them — it only forces people to seek out other, potentially dangerous means of terminating a pregnancy.

“Women with resources who want an abortion will travel to where it is legal or be far more likely to find a friendly doctor to perform the procedure,” Dr. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, wrote in a Bee op-ed almost three months ago when he predicted the Supreme Court would overturn Roe. “It is poor women and teenagers who will be left to the cruel choice between an unsafe, back-alley abortion and an unwanted child.”

The stripping away of constitutionally protected reproductive rights was a future many of us — mostly women — predicted on the night of Nov. 8, 2016. The Trump presidency marked the almost inevitable end of Roe’s protections. Yet the reality is even more devastating, infuriating and terrifying than we had imagined.

Constitutionally guaranteed rights that protect bodily autonomy are being stripped away by our nation’s highest court in a disturbing fashion — flagrantly ignoring Roe, which is still upheld, and ignoring the devastating consequences abortion restrictions will have.

SB 8’s terrifying success is a stark reminder that elections matter. This is why women marched across the globe in response to Trump’s inauguration. This is why women continue to fight for equal rights.

As Sotomayor said in her scathing dissent, “a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.” Our eyes are wide open in California, and our state will lead the fight against partisan extremists who think the government has any right to tell a person what to do with their body.

This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.