California colleges soon will be offering free abortion pills to students on campus.
The College Fix reports officials with the University of California and California State University are preparing to provide abortions by the Jan. 1, 2023 deadline set in a new pro-abortion law.
The law, the first in the nation, mandates that all public colleges and universities provide abortion drugs for free to students up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it in 2019.
Toni Molle, a spokesperson for California State University, said their 23 schools will meet the deadline.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has not deterred or impacted implementation planning,” Molle told The Fix. “A working group comprised of health services professionals is determining the needs of each campus to implement the legislation.”
Meanwhile, one University of California school already is giving out free abortion pills and the other nine will be by next year, according to the report.
“Access to this health care service is currently available at UC Berkeley and expected soon at [University of California Irvine],” spokesperson Heather Harper told The Fix. “Other UC student health centers on UC campuses continue to work toward providing access to this service as outlined under state law.”
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In total, 34 public college campuses in the state will be forced to provide abortion drugs to students on campus.
Thousands of unborn babies could be aborted on campus each year as a result. According to a state Senate Health Committee April 1, 2019 analysis, “… up to 500 public university students currently must leave campus each month to access medication abortion.”
Democrat lawmakers who sponsored the legislation said they hope to collect about $10 million in private donations to help campuses set up their abortion practices. The state Commission on the Status of Women and Girls is in charge of overseeing the funding.
However, a California Department of Finance report predicted that the donations will not be nearly enough to fund the program over the next several years. That means California taxpayers and students will be forced to pay for unborn babies to be aborted across the state
The legislation was met with wide-spread concern, including from the colleges and Newsom’s own state Department of Finance as well as pro-life advocates. Former Gov. Jerry Brown, a pro-abortion Democrat, vetoed a very similar bill in 2018, saying the measure was “not necessary” because abortions already are easily accessible to college students.
Brown pointed to a study from the supporters of the bill showing that the average distance to an abortion facility from campus was only about 5 miles.
Before the bill passed, the University of California and the California State University systems also expressed concerns. They said they were not prepared to handle the immense costs of providing abortions on campus, pointing to the need for ultrasound machines and staff training and increased liabilities, according to CBS 13 Sacramento.
But abortion activists insisted that women need easy access to abortion.
“It’s about access. Just because you have a constitutional right, if you don’t have access to that constitutional right, then it’s really no right at all,” state Sen. Connie Levya, a Democrat and lead sponsor of the bill, told Vice, previously. “I’m tired of women being shamed.”
Leading pro-life advocates nationally and in California lamented Newsom signing the bill.
Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins told LifeNews.com, previously, “The Pro-Life Generation will not sit back and watch their college and university campuses be turned into Planned Parenthood’s new money making machine.”
Hawkins said her organization can help students and health care workers in California if their conscience rights are violated by being forced to participate in abortions.
California Family Council president Jonathan Keller also previously criticized Newsom for prioritizing the goals of the pro-abortion lobby over the safety of students.
“Newsom ignored his own financial experts. He ignored the wisdom of a two-term governor from his own party. He ignored university officials who didn’t want to bear the liability and cost of on-campus abortions,” Keller said. “Sadly, it appears Governor Newsom’s commitment to discredited groups like Planned Parenthood overruled legitimate concerns about turning America’s largest higher education system into a chemical abortion network.”
