CA Enshrines The Right To Abortion: What To Know

CALIFORNIA — The Golden State joined two other states in enshrining access to abortion this week. The passed measures come months after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion.

California voters approved the ballot measure, Proposition 1, according to The Associated Press. Early tallies showed that the measure pulled ahead with 65 percent of the vote.

The state already had passed several measures aimed at easing access to abortion and set aside millions of taxpayer dollars to help pay for some out-of-state abortion travel. The winning proposition will spur California to amend the state constitution, ensuring that the state government cannot interfere with a person's right to abortion and contraception.

The victory signifies a win for Democratic leaders, who began authoring the measure swiftly after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The proposition was introduced after the high court's decision was leaked last year.

The new constitutional amendment sheds the word "viability" from the the current state law, which allows abortions before the fetus is viable — around 24 weeks into pregnancy.

Experts and officials are still at odds about whether viability should be taken into account.

Critics of the measure argued that it goes too far. The amendment could be interpreted to allow for late-term abortions in California, critics contended.

“Proposition 1 is an extreme law that allows late-term abortions at taxpayer expense up to the moment of birth—even if the baby is healthy and the mother’s health is not threatened,” the official argument on the ballot reads. “Current California law already guarantees a woman’s right to choose, making this extreme and costly proposal unnecessary.”

Bishop of Sacramento Jaime Soto issued a statement opposing the proposition and denouncing the state’s support for abortion rights.

"The state's political leadership continues to stubbornly cling to the practice of abortion and the throw-away culture. It is reprehensible to enshrine in the State Constitution the practice of abortion even until moments before delivery,” he said. "I call on the faithful to imagine a new vision for California, to imagine a society without abortion."

READ MORE: California Becomes First State With Constitutional Right To Abortion

This week, California joined battleground Michigan as well as blue Vermont in enshrining abortion rights. Abortion rights supporters also dealt a defeat to an anti-abortion measure in deep-red Kentucky.

The Kentucky result repudiated the state’s Republican-led Legislature, which has imposed a near-total ban on abortion and put the proposed state constitutional amendment on the ballot. The outcome echoed what happened in another red state, Kansas, where voters in August rejected changing that state’s constitution to let lawmakers tighten restrictions or ban abortions.

Nationally, about two-thirds of voters say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of over 90,000 voters across the country. Only about 1 in 10 say abortion should be illegal in all cases.

READ MORE: Newsom, Padilla Races Called: CA General Election 2022

“As we saw in Kansas earlier this year, and in many other states last night, this is not a partisan issue," said Nancy Northup, president the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a statement. "People are energized and they do not want politicians controlling their bodies and futures.”

About 6 in 10 also say the Supreme Court’s abortion decision made them dissatisfied or angry, compared with fewer who say they were happy or satisfied.

Patch editor Paige Austin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.