California bills are 'a flag we're planting in the ground' to protect abortion access, AG says

Andrew Sheeler, The Sacramento Bee on Dec 2, 2024

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Attorney General Rob Bonta gathered with a handful of state lawmakers and abortion access advocates to introduce two bills that they intend to help fortify the Golden State against anti-abortion efforts.

The first bill, by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, would safeguard access to medication abortions by shielding manufacturers, distributors and health providers from any civil, criminal or professional liability when transporting, distributing or administering abortion medications such as mifepristone and misoprostol.

The second, by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would give the California Attorney General’s Office the authority to bring lawsuits against municipalities that interfere with peoples’ constitutionally protected access to abortions — a bill that comes in response to the City of Beverly Hills’ failed attempt earlier this year to block a clinic from going up within its jurisdiction.

Bonta said that this legislation, plus the proposed $25 million to fund the state Department of Justice’s anticipated fight with the next Trump administration, shows that his office will stand with Californians “no matter what comes” from the Republican-controlled White House and Congress.

“We’re a reproductive freedom state and that’s not changing,” he said.

Bauer-Kahan, speaking about her bill, choked up a bit when she mentioned a conversation she had with her daughter Monday morning.

“When I was sworn in six years ago, she was 7. She couldn’t bear children and she didn’t know what abortion was. This morning, when I told her what I was doing today, she said, ‘Make sure they know that nobody should make girls like me have babies.’ That, my friends, is what girls who are growing up in America today think and feel,” she said.

Krell, who had to leave the press conference early in order to be sworn in at noon as the new Legislature convened, said that in her time at the California Department of Justice she prosecuted sex traffickers who deprived their victims of bodily autonomy.

Now, she said, she was fighting against an incoming administration that is threatening to do the same, as well as states that have passed laws in an attempt to enforce their abortion bans beyond their boundaries.

“That’s the environment that we’re in, that’s what we’re faced with,” Krell said.

Bonta said that the two pieces of legislation are “spot bills,” meaning that specific details of what they entail are yet to be disclosed, in part, he said, because it will depend on what President-elect Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress decide to do. The attorney general said he didn’t want to give away the state’s strategy before Trump’s side had acted.

Trump on the campaign trail sent mixed messages about abortion.

Though he has said that he would veto a national abortion ban, he has proudly taken credit for the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and left the right to an abortion up to individual states.

He also has begun staffing his administration with authors of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative manifesto that calls for tougher restrictions on abortion.

Bonta said that Krell’s bill is “a flag we’re planting in the ground” to protect abortion medication.

Asked about the $25 million that Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers have proposed to allocate to his office to fight against Trump, Bonta said that it “is an excellent start,” and that the Legislature can approve additional funding should it be necessary.

Legislative Republicans 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.

Bonta defended the more than 120 lawsuits brought by the state Justice Department in the first Trump administration, by both Bonta and his predecessor, then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

“I would say that that money was very well spent,” Bonta said.

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