SACRAMENTO, California (LifeSiteNews) – California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing in his budget plan to make abortion pills more easily available through the state’s prescription drug program as a check against future “politically motivated” restrictions in other states.
According to a press release from the governor’s office, Newsom called for expanding the authority of CalRX, a state-run “low-cost” prescription drug initiative, to purchase brand-name drugs that his office says will provide “more tools to respond to supply chain disruptions, market manipulation, or politically motivated restrictions that could threaten access to essential medications — including medication abortion.”
“Prescription drug prices are out of control and we’re shining a light on hidden costs — while also giving CalRX more tools to respond to supply chain disruptions, market manipulation, or politically motivated abortion restrictions,” Newsom declared.
“Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California is supportive of any and all tools that protect reproductive health care, including maintaining access to medication abortion in the state,” responded Shelby McMichael, a spokesperson for the abortion giant (which has also expressed frustration with Newsom recently for proposing cuts to payments to health providers).
Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby is working feverishly to cancel out those deterrents with a variety of tactics, especially the unregulated, no-oversight pill distribution of abortion pills across state lines, regardless of the risks to the women they are supposedly serving.
In November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities in 2022 led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business “surged” with 64 percent of new facilities built last year specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol. Citing data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, STAT says mifepristone “accounts for roughly half of all abortions in the U.S.”
This is despite the fact that a 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA’s own adverse reporting system says the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths. Adverse events are notoriously underreported to the FDA, and as of 2016, the FDA only requires abortion pill manufacturers to report maternal deaths.”
“A November 2021 study by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology,” Catholic University of America research associate Michael New wrote. “They analyzed state Medicaid data of over 400,000 abortions from 17 states that fund elective abortions through their Medicaid programs. They found that the rate of abortion pill-related emergency-room visits increased over 500 percent from 2002 through 2015. The rate of emergency-room visits for surgical abortions also increased during the same time period, but by a much smaller margin.’”
Newsom’s California is among the most pro-abortion states in the country, working to solidify its status as a “sanctuary” for residents of neighboring states who wish to dispose of their preborn children.
California law declares a “fundamental right” to abortion, offers taxpayer funding for the practice, and prohibits cooperation with law enforcement from other states attempting to investigate or prosecute abortions across state lines. It also subsidizes abortion pills on college campuses and attempts to punish pro-life pregnancy centers for informing women of the option of abortion pill reversal.
