By Dave Andrusko
The future of reproductive rights across the U.S. might look a little dim, but there’s one place where there’s cause for optimism. — Bustle magazine
We can hope—we can always hope—but chances are slim outgoing pro-abortion California Gov. Jerry Brown will veto a bill mandating that all public universities carry abortifacients in student health centers beginning in 2022.
When last we reported, the state Senate had passed SB 320 but not the state Assembly. Alas, the Assembly has since also passed the bill and it is on the desk of Gov. Brown.
If/when he signs the legislation, California would be the first state to require public universities to offer chemical abortions to students. (There are 34 public campuses in the University of California and California State University systems.)
Only two universities surveyed in the 2015 American College Health Association PAP & STI Survey provided medication abortions at their health centers.
The rational is hardly original. The Daily Titan paraphrased the bill’s language:
The bill states that it is in the interest of California that every pregnant woman who wants an abortion is able to have easy access to it. It also says that having early and accessible care for young people will help them stay on track with any educational and life plans.
Can’t let that little one get in the way. No “life plans” for them.
Recently-graduated Adiba Khan told Bustle, “[Abortion] is a good thing,” adding, “Anything that allows you to make a better decision about your own life, we consider to be a good thing.” Khan is described as “working full-time on the effort to get the bill passed.”
State Sen. Connie Leyva, the legislative force behind the bill, told Bustle
“This is a wholesale change with how things are done when it comes to medicated abortions. When you change something, it is always difficult,” she says. “But as I’ve said to people, this will be the new normal. In five years. In 10 years, people will look back and say, ‘Oh wow, they didn’t used to offer medicated abortion?'”
Opponents saw SB 320 in a far different light. Their instinct is not to take the child’s life but to help the mother navigate an unplanned pregnancy at the same time she is attending school. According to the Daily Titan, the student newspaper at California State University, Fullerton
Students For Life’s new president, Cameron Brewer, opposes the bill. Brewer said that any campus health resources should be used to help women who are pregnant, need help with child care and give information about adoption.
“It’s (the pill) more traumatic for women. It’s way easier to access without thinking about it, and the side effects can be more severe. There should be more instruction on the adoption process,” said Brewer.
Naturally, in all the promotion for chemical abortifacients at student health centers not a syllable about complications, including deaths.
The latest FDA latest update tells us that as of December 31, 2017, at least 22 women have died.
“As of December 31, 2017, there were reports of 22 deaths of women associated with Mifeprex [RU-486] since the product was approved in September 2000, including two cases of ectopic pregnancy resulting in death; and several cases of severe systemic infection (also called sepsis), including some that were fatal.”
The best one can say about the report’s update on “adverse events” is that it is incomplete.
As Carole Novielli noted, between 2000 and 2012, numerous serious complications were reported:
- Cases with any adverse event – 2,740 (average 228/yr)
- Hospitalized, excluding deaths – 768 (average 64/yr)
- Experienced blood loss requiring transfusions – 416 (average 35/yr)
- Infections – 308 (average 26/yr)
So who would fund the initial “implementation costs“? The Tara Foundation in San Francisco, as the Associated Press previously reported,
which funds health and wellness programs for women, the Women’s Foundation of California and another donor have agreed to cover implementation costs estimated between $14 million and $20 million, Ruth Shaber [president of the Tara Foundation] said. She and Leyva declined to identify the other donor, saying the organization wished to remain anonymous.
As is always the one-sided way with pro-abortionists, the California Catholic Conference observed, “SB 320 also invites health centers to offer abortion counseling services to their students but is specifically written in such a way to exclude pro-life counseling.”