Fresno-area women don’t need to panic about abortion access. California has your back
Fresno-area women don’t need to panic about the U.S. Supreme Court’s possible ruling to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion-rights decision.
If the justices do as expected in several months and scrap Roe vs. Wade, the right to choose to get an abortion will be left to states. And California’s Democratic leaders have made it clear that a woman’s right to choose will remain sacrosanct in the Golden State.
“California will not sit back. We are going to fight like hell,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday night in a posting to Twitter.
The news site Politico broke the story about a leaked draft decision it obtained that was written by conservative Justice Samuel A. Alito. The Washington Post, summarizing the report, said Alito, along with Justice Clarence Thomas and all three of President Donald Trump’s nominees to the court — Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted to overturn the precedent.
In reaction, The New York Times reported that late Monday evening Newsom and the two Democratic leaders in the Legislature — Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Toni Atkins, president pro tempore of the state Senate, would propose an amendment to the state Constitution to protect abortion access. Such a measure could come before voters as soon as November.
It would seem such a measure is not needed. The California Constitution already protects abortion rights as a right to privacy. Atkins told The Times the lawmakers “want to be very clear that the right to abortion is what we’re talking about.”
The only way the federal government could ban abortion nationwide is by Congress passing such a law and the president signing it. Even then, states like California would sue to stop such a prohibition from taking effect.
The West Coast overall is a bulwark for abortion rights. Oregon, Washington and Nevada also have laws protecting the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.
Whether the high court follows through on Alito’s decision has yet to become official, though it seems all but certain.
Women in Fresno and the greater San Joaquin Valley can take heart, however, that in their corner of America, they will keep the right to make their own decisions about their pregnancies.
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This story was originally published May 3, 2022 at 7:52 AM.