California could soon pass legislation that would force all 146 taxpayer-funded colleges and universities in the state to dispense abortifacient pills — first designated as RU-486 — to students.
A bill is now making it way though the state legislature is aiming to do just that, reports The College Fix.
Democratic state Sen. Connie Leyva has introduced the College Student Right to Access Act this month and claims if the bill is successfully passed it “will help to improve the academic success of students.”
She makes no attempt to correlate academic success and having an abortion.
The program would require student health insurance plans to provide “medical abortions” at the state’s 10 University of California schools, 23 Cal State campuses and 113 community colleges.
“If a UC, CSU or community college already has a student health center, it makes sense that they provide this health care service within that facility,” said Leyva.
The abortifacient pill is actually a combination of drugs that induces a miscarriage and terminates a pregnancy. Common complications that women experience from use of the “medicine” includes heavy bleeding, nausea and strong abdominal pain associated with forcing the fetus out of the body over several days. The pill may be administered throughout the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The “pill bill” has been compared to a campaign at UC Berkeley in the spring of 2016, when the student government passed a resolution that would have authorized abortions at the campus medical centers.
That effort failed.
But if a member of UC Berkeley’s Students United for Reproductive Justice group is to be believed, the abortifacient pill legislation is related to that earlier attempt. Phoebe Abramowitz told The College Fix that Leyva’s bill was “inspired” by the Berkeley students.
Leyva’s office has indicated that there is no organized opposition to the bill but that people have been calling her office either in support or against the legislation.
“[O]nce we explain the reality of what medication abortion is and what it would look like to have it implemented in our on-campus health center, students are overwhelmingly supportive,” Abramowitz said, adding that they are in contact with like-minded students at other campuses to bolster support.
“We hope to have vocal support for this legislation coming from groups on as many different campuses as possible,” she said.
Student pro-life groups are outraged by the proposal.
“There is nothing pro-woman about legislating that students get the abortion drug on campus,” Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins told The College Fix.
“Instead of offering encouragement…connecting them with local resources to housing and childcare, or helping to create a life-affirming campus, some California legislators would rather demean these women and help them end the life of their child,” she said.