Vote on California’s bill to mandate abortion pill on college campuses expected soon

SB 320 doesn’t even pretend to be pro-choice; it is blatantly pro-abortion. It asserts that abortion is necessary for students to “stay on track to achieve their educational and other aspirational life plans,” and contains no provisions whatsoever for improving access to contraception, prenatal care, or material support for parenting students. And abortion pill reversal? Not a chance.

As a San Jose State University student activist wrote for this blog in March:

SB 320 offers no choice for a campus pro-life community and no real choice for our pregnant students. SB 320 offers a choice between choosing between one’s education and one’s child. This is not “choice,” this is not “empowering,” this is not “feminist,” and this is certainly not “respecting our differences.” We at Spartans for Life believe California can do better. We believe that women can do anything they set their minds to. We believe all student fees would be better served aiding our pregnant Spartans in being both mothers and students.

Writing in the Washington Examiner, Live Action founder and California native Lila Rose says:

Proponents [of SB 320] have lied about the dangers of a medication abortion, lied about fetal development, and lied about the accessibility of abortions. They have also failed their students by refusing to offer other solutions to unwanted pregnancies.

Planned Parenthood’s website describes the medication abortion as “kind of like having a really heavy, crampy period.” This is not true. The reality is, the procedure is gruesome. Students who take the abortion pill will find themselves in communal dormitory bathrooms in labor, expelling their preborn child alone — often in severe pain and with heavily bleeding for days — with no direct medical supervision on hand. This is the reality of taking RU486.

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood manager, described her own medication abortion. The second day on the pill regimen, she was in excruciating pain, bleeding and vomiting for hours. She passed what she called several lemon-sized blood clots. When she called Planned Parenthood, the nurse told her, “That is not abnormal.” For eight more weeks, Abby bled heavily, had debilitating cramps, and experienced intense nausea.

According to the FDA, at least 22 women have died after taking the RU-486 regimen, and many others have had serious complications, with nearly 600 women experiencing such severe blood loss that they required transfusions.

At least one of California’s university systems, California State University, is reluctant to participate, and has rightfully expressed concern that its campuses are ill-equipped to deal with the risks of a medication abortion.

Another critical fact that those pushing SB 320 leave out is the level of development of the baby at this stage of pregnancy. The abortion pill regimen can be administered up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy. By 10 weeks, the preborn child has a beating heart, arms, and legs.

If you are a California resident, please contact your lawmakers and urge them to reject this dangerous pseudo-feminist bill. SB 320 is nothing but a ploy by the abortion industry to save its profits in the face of a nationally declining abortion rate.

We also encourage California residents to attend the upcoming “Let There Be Life” conference at UC Berkeley, led by our good friends at Pro-Life San Francisco and featuring SPL spokeswomen Terrisa Bukovinac and Monica Snyder. This is a crucial gathering for pro-life advocates in the Golden State. If the SB 320 vote fails, that won’t be the end of it; we will need to vote out those who voted in favor of it to ensure it doesn’t rear its ugly head again in the next legislative session. And if the worst happens, the conference will be an opportunity to strategize the pro-life movement’s response. We will need to establish a student-led sidewalk counseling presence at every campus health center, ideally to include ready availability of abortion pill reversal. (Thankfully, tuition-paying students on government property have iron-clad First Amendment rights, but we should expect litigation nonetheless.) Register here.