California is preparing to welcome a large influx of women who want to have an abortion if the US Supreme Court amends, confirming all concerns, the legal framework guaranteeing the right to abortion since 1973 with the historic Roe v Wade ruling.
With the support of Governor Gavin Newsom and other elected Democrats, about forty civil rights, public health, and family planning organizations have compiled a list of very specific guidelines so that California can respond to all requests for of women who will seek refuge in the state, whether they reside there or come from other US states affected by the reversal of the legal framework.
Governor Newsom publicly welcomed the establishment in late September of the Council on the Future of Abortion to expand access to sexual and reproductive health, including abortion, following dangerous, harmful and unconstitutional restrictions. The conservative and Republican-dominated southern U.S. state has banned abortion since Sept. 1 after the sixth week of pregnancy.
Defenders of the right to abortion are now worried about a bigger threat: the Supreme Court appears ready to give the green light to a law passed in 2018 by the state of Mississippi that prohibits abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
This law violates the framework of the historic decision Roe v. Wade of 1973 in which the Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution guarantees the right of women to have an abortion as long as the fetus is not viable, ie at 22 to 24 weeks of gestation. Consequently, the Mississippi Act has not entered into force as unconstitutional.
If the US Supreme Court, which is due to announce its ruling by the end of June, ratifies the Mississippi Act, many conservative states seeking to curb abortions will rush to seize the margin left by the Supreme Court ruling. judicial institution of the country.
In an indication of the deep divisions for abortion, the state of Mississippi operates only one center that performs abortion voluntarily, while California, the most populous US state, has 150 abortion centers.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Mississippi law, 26 US states are ready “with certainty or probability” to ban abortion on their territory.
In practice, if the judgment in Roe v. Wade reversed or significantly weakened, 21 states already have laws or amendments in place that will allow them to act quickly, according to the Institute for Reproductive Health Research.
And the consequence will be that tens of thousands of women, not being able to terminate a pregnancy in the state where they live, will seek a solution in the neighboring states that will rush to take advantage of the margins provided by the Supreme Court by opening a rift in Roe v. Wade.
Reproductive freedom for all
In California, organizations are already feeling the effects of the Texas ban from early September. The Family Planning Network already monitors the arrival of two to three patients a day from Texas.
The California-based non-governmental organization Access Reproductive Justice, which provides administrative and financial assistance to women seeking termination of pregnancy, is also seeing an increase in applications from Texas. “We know the barriers tend to be bigger for people who are not from California because they have to pay for the plane or the bus,” said Jessica Picney, director of the NGO.
It cites examples of women who did not realize they were pregnant before the sixth or seventh week, losing access to abortion in their state and their insurance to cover expenses, which can range from $ 200 to $ 6,000 depending on the case. .
“Generally, they are forced to carry out an unwanted pregnancy or make radical decisions by leaving their state,” explains Jessica Pickney.
A stronghold of the Democrats and the spearhead of the opposition in the super-conservative policy of Donald Trump, California was officially declared in May 2019 a state that guarantees reproductive freedom for all, pledging to defend the right to abortion.
As early as 2014, it had enacted legislation that obliges employers and private insurance companies to include abortion in their health coverage.
When Donald Trump attempted to pressure California to overturn the arrangement, Governor Newsom denounced a “vulgar political move,” saying “women’s health equals public health.”
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
.
