SACRAMENTO, CA – With state lawmakers and abortion access advocates in attendance, California Attorney General Rob Bonta introduced two bills this past week in a special legislative session to protect and uphold access to abortion in California, according to an article published by the Sacramento Bee.
Authored by Assemblymember Maggie Krell, D-Sacramento, the first bill aims to protect healthcare providers, manufacturers and distributors from legal consequences when administering, transporting or distributing abortion medications like mifepristone and misoprostol, thereby safeguarding various professional agents involved in medication abortions, wrote The Bee.
Bonta said Krell’s bill “is a flag we are planting in the ground” to protect abortion medication.
The second bill, as reported by The Bee, authored by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would give authority to the California Attorney General’s Office to file lawsuits against municipalities that impede or obstruct people’s constitutionally protected access to abortion.
The measure, The Bee added, is in response to the City of Beverly Hills attempting, but failing, to prevent a reproductive health clinic from opening in its jurisdiction.
When speaking about her bill, Bauer-Kahan got emotional when recalling a conversation that morning, in which her 13-year-old daughter said, “Make sure they know that nobody should make girls like me have babies,” wrote The Sacramento Bee.
Bauer-Kahan stated, “That, my friends, is what girls who are growing up in America today think and feel.”
Krell said, before leaving the press conference early to be sworn in as the new legislature convened, that she prosecuted sex traffickers who deprived their victims of bodily autonomy in her time at the California Department of Justice.
She added, The Bee reported, that she was fighting against an incoming (Trump) administration that is threatening to do the same, attempting to pass laws to enforce abortion bans, noting, “That’s the environment that we’re in, that’s what we’re faced with.”
AG Bonta said this legislation and the proposed $25 million Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers proposed to fund the state Department of Justice’s anticipated fight against the upcoming Trump Administration demonstrated his office will stand with Californians against the unpredictability of the Republican-controlled White House and Congress, The Bee reported.
Bonta called this proposed budget an excellent start and remarked that the legislature could approve additional funding if necessary, explaining more details of the legislation will be disclosed at another time, telling The Bee he didn’t want to give away the state’s strategy to President-Elect Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress.
Legislative Republicans, wrote The Bee, have criticized Newsom for calling a special session, with Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, writing a letter to Trump urging him to work with the state to address its problems.
