SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California voters will decide in November whether to guarantee the right to abortion in their state’s constitution. to retain control of Congress after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Rowe against Wade.
The court ruling on Friday allowed states to decide for themselves whether to allow abortion. California is controlled by Democrats who support abortion rights, so access to the procedure will not be jeopardized any time soon.
But the legal right to abortion in California is based on the “right to privacy” in the state constitution. The Supreme Court’s ruling states that the right to privacy does not guarantee the right to abortion. California Democrats fear that this decision could make state abortion laws vulnerable to challenge in state courts.
To correct this, California lawmakers on Monday agreed to put a constitutional amendment in this year’s ballot that would leave no doubt about the abortion status in California.
The amendment will declare that the state “should not deny or interfere with the individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.”
California joined Vermont in its efforts to protect abortion in its state constitution. Vermont’s proposal, also in the November vote, did not include the word “abortion” but would protect “personal reproductive autonomy” – although there is an exception “justified by an overriding state interest achieved with the least restrictive means”.
Meanwhile, four conservative states – Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia – have constitutions that say the right to abortion is not protected, according to the Gutmacher Institute, an abortion rights group.
The California amendment is part of the Democrats’ aggressive strategy to expand access to abortion in response to a ruling by the US Supreme Court. Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law aimed at protecting abortion providers in California and volunteers from lawsuits in other states – a law aimed at blunting Texas law that allows private citizens to prosecute people who help women in this state to have an abortion.
California’s huge budget includes more than $ 200 million to expand access to abortion in the state. The money will help pay for abortions for women who can’t afford them, scholarships for abortion providers and a new website listing all government abortion services in one place.
The budget also includes $ 20 million to help women pay for abortion logistics, including things like travel, lodging and childcare. But the Newsum administration says the money cannot be used to help women from other states where abortion is illegal or severely restricted come to California to receive the procedure.
A dozen other bills are forthcoming that would do things like allow some nursing practitioners to perform abortions without a doctor’s supervision and block the disclosure of abortion-related medical records to entities outside the state.
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