California moves closer to mandating on-campus abortion services

Grace Gottschling

Grace Gottschling Investigative Reporter
 Source: https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11051

California moved one step closer to passing a bill that would require public university health centers across the state to provide on-campus medicated abortion services.

  • The measure has already passed the State Senate, and after passing the Assembly Health Committee, has only one committee left to face before proceeding to the Assembly floor.

Forty students from 14 universities lobbied the California Assembly Monday in support of a bill that would require public university health centers to provide abortion services.

SB 320, proposed last year by State Senator Connie Leyva, would force all public colleges in California with health centers to supply non-surgical, medication abortions to students by 2022.

“I [met] a few peers who attempted to get an abortion through the student health center, and they faced a lot of hurdles, mostly bureaucratic, before they were able to get an abortion.”   

Abortifacient medication, used in early term, non surgical abortions, is utilized to terminate a pregnancy within the first 10 weeks of gestation.

[RELATED: California bill deems abortion a ‘constitutional right’]

The State Senate passed the bill in January, and the State Assembly Health Committee voted to advance the bill last week, Fox News reports.

The California Committee on Higher Education still must vote on the controversial abortion bill before it can proceed to the floor.

The bill’s supporters claim that a private donor has promised to cover related expenses to ensure compliance with state law mandating that no government funds be used to provide abortion services.

[RELATED: CA Dem proposes free abortion pills at public universities]

As Campus Reform has previously reported, members of the UC Berkeley student government had long advocated for such a bill, even suggesting that school administrators should take a pay cut to fund on-campus abortion services.

The statewide measure was inspired by a more recent UC Berkeley student government resolution, a 2016 measure calling for medicated abortion services at the school health center.

“I was able to meet a few peers who attempted to get an abortion through the student health center, and they faced a lot of hurdles, mostly bureaucratic, before they were able to get an abortion,” Adiba Khan, the original author of the resolution, told NPR.