Published October 15, 2021 in the San Jose Mercury News
As devastating as the Texas six-week abortion ban, SB 8, has already been for Texans since it was enacted in September, the blatantly unconstitutional law doesn’t pose as great a threat to national abortion rights as a Mississippi 15-week abortion ban that will come before the U.S. Supreme Court in December — a direct challenge to Roe vs. Wade.
Both these laws make it clear that California’s leadership and status as a reproductive-freedom state has never been more important, especially for those who live in at least 23 states that will rush to ban abortion access if the Supreme Court upholds even one of the bans.
In fact, the “above-ground railroad” for abortion has already begun. Over the past year, more than 7,000 patients have come from other states to California Planned Parenthood health centers, mostly to receive abortions. And that’s the tiny minority of people who can afford the travel expenses. What about all those who can’t?
Here at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM), the affiliate I lead, one of our Bay Area health centers recently saw a patient who came from Texas, where she attends a large university. She had tried to find abortion care near her campus, less than a week after SB 8 had been enacted – but her pregnancy was just a few days past the six-week limit.
She was able to scrape together enough money to fly to California, where she knew she could stay with relatives. Though she was able to get the care she needed, hundreds of people in Texas like her have been unable to access abortion in the weeks since the law went into effect.
Most of the patients we serve at PPMM live barely above the federal poverty level and are not able to travel, which is why we expanded care in California’s “abortion-access deserts.” Now we must prepare to serve many more people if abortion access is eliminated in much of the country, and we must confront the challenge of how those with low incomes can afford to travel here, where the right to abortion is enshrined in our state constitution.
In October, we got off to a good start when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the formation of the California Future of Abortion Council, which will work in collaboration with researchers, advocates, policy makers, providers and patients to assess these challenges and recommend solutions. This work should result in policy that will be crucial in the effort to make California an increasingly accessible reproductive-rights haven, including for people traveling here from other states.
Our staff has already been preparing to help as many people as possible by training more of our clinicians to provide abortions and take on a greater volume of patients. We are ready to continue increasing capacity in California regions where abortion access is scarce and near major transportation hubs where out-of-state patients can easily fly in to nearby airports.
In the meantime, as abortion rights hang in the balance with the Supreme Court, I urge Californians who share our state’s commitment to reproductive freedom to donate to local abortion-access funds that will help people in other states afford travel here so they can exercise their rights over their own bodies.
Our recent patient from Texas summed up the stakes very well. She told one of our staff members who helped coordinate her abortion care how upset she was that politicians and judges were making decisions about people’s lives — “lives they know nothing about.”
“They’re taking away our most basic rights,” she said. “Where are we supposed to go?”
Stacy Cross is president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, headquartered in San Jose.
Tags: SB-8, abortion_bans