5 ways California is protecting abortion

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed roughly a dozen laws aimed at turning California into an abortion sanctuary, a moment that couldn’t come at a better time for the Democratic politician’s fiery brand of politics.

With the midterms just weeks away and a number of the state’s congressional races hinging on the issue, the governor approved a sweeping reproductive rights package designed to shield patients and clinicians from criminal investigations, defray the costs of traveling to California for the procedure and expand the number of people who can perform abortions, among other changes.

Voters in November will also decide whether to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution.

Newsom has seized on abortion as a defining issue since last fall, when Texas banned abortions past six weeks of pregnancy.

Now, as states deal with the fallout of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, California wants to offer its new laws as a roadmap for Democratic leaders, with Newsom as the guide. He’s using campaign funds to buy billboard space in red states, advertising California’s abortion policies — and when he swung through Austin, Texas, over the weekend to speak at TribFest, he promised California would “have your back” on access.

Here are five ways California is strengthening abortion rights and access:

Getting the word out

California’s stance on abortion is being played out right now in two separate billboard campaigns — one waged by Newsom against anti-abortion states, and another by Planned Parenthood in states that support abortion rights.

“Need an abortion? California is ready to help.” That’s the message Newsom is spreading on billboards in seven states, using his campaign funds, including South Dakota, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. In Texas, he’s being more blunt: “Texas doesn’t own your body. You do.” Newsom’s multi-state billboard campaign stoked yet more speculation about his White House ambitions, which he claims not to have.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America is funding a separate campaign that debuted Sept. 19 largely around transit hubs in California, Colorado, New Mexico, New York and Maryland. Planned Parenthood plans to extend the campaign to other states that protect abortion rights.

The California billboards, near major airports in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles, will be up until Oct. 16 and say “You are entering California, which protects abortion rights.”

Both campaigns feature the state’s website, abortion.ca.gov, which offers information on the state's abortion providers and how to get additional help, including financial and emotional support.

The site has received more than 70,000 page views as of Monday, with more than half of the traffic coming from outside the state, according to the governor’s office.

Enshrining rights

California voters in November will determine whether the rights to abortion and contraception should be enshrined in the state constitution. Polls estimate the statewide ballot initiative, Proposition 1, will get support from upwards of 70 percent of the state’s voters.

State lawmakers wrote the proposed constitutional amendment that became Prop 1 after POLITICO in May published a draft Supreme Court ruling. The proposition declares that the state cannot interfere in a person’s reproductive decisions. Voters in Vermont and Michigan will also be asked to protect abortion in their state constitutions.

Prop 1 has generated little spending on either side. But political observers will be watching whether the measure — in a state that already has some of the most robust abortion protections — drives voters to the polls and possibly sways close races on the local and national level.

Protecting patients and clinicians

California has added legal protections for those who seek abortions in California as well as the physicians and other practitioners who provide it.

Most of those bills are meant to protect people seeking care in California from other states’ anti-abortion legislation, but one could apply to out-of-state residents. It prohibits California law enforcement from cooperating with out-of-state abortion investigations and bans California tech companies from releasing abortion-related digital information, which could also shield people in other states.

Another new law that drew some controversy would prevent people from being investigated, prosecuted or jailed for ending a pregnancy or experiencing pregnancy loss in California. Opponents of the bill erroneously claimed it would legalize infanticide after birth.

Clinicians, patients and anyone who helps someone get an abortion in California are shielded from civil liability judgments by a new law that took immediately after Newsom signed it in June.

Expanding access

Abortion services remain scarce and costly in some parts of California, and the state budget includes more than $200 million to train clinicians and build or expand clinics.

The state also plans to spend up to $20 million to defray costs for those who travel from out of the state for care, such as lodging and childcare.

Starting next year, Californians with private insurance won’t have to pay any copayments or out-of-pocket costs for abortions. Also next year, public universities will be required to offer medication abortion, a nonsurgical way to terminate a pregnancy, at campus health clinics under a 2019 law.

Many clinics, particularly Planned Parenthood affiliates, have been expanding their capacity in anticipation of increased demand. But the need for services threatens to outstrip the number of clinicians who can prescribe abortion medication and perform the procedure.

One of California’s new bills allows qualified nurse practitioners to provide abortions without the supervision of a physician, while another speeds up the licensing process for practitioners.

Playing the long game

State restrictions on abortions and the prospect of a national abortion law such as the 15-week ban proposed earlier this month by Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, have fueled a Democratic strategy around abortion rights heading into the midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

California Democrats are campaigning hard on abortion in several key House races in a bid to boost turnout, and the issue is expected to sway the outcome of the November elections.

But abortion-rights advocates are also promoting the state’s legislative package as a policy playbook for blue states that are preparing for an influx of out-of-state patients amid the growing tide of Republican-led states that are planning to or have already severely restricted abortion access.

Arizona, which borders California, just reinstated a Civil War-era abortion ban, as Newsom pointed out in a tweet over the weekend.

“Arizona is literally wiping out over a century of progress—enacting an abortion ban from 1901,” he tweeted. “... Never been more important to elect @katiehobbs for Governor.

“Let’s raise her $100,000 TODAY.”