A California bill requiring community colleges to offer abortion pills sparked praise and criticism after advancing in the state legislature this month. Supporters believe it will increase students’ access to “reproductive healthcare” while opponents say it will put more pressure on students to abort their unborn babies.
Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a Democrat who authored the bill, noted that the goal is to address “gaps in access to reproductive healthcare.”
“With the Community College Student Right to Access Act, we are closing a critical gap and ensuring that community college students—one of the most diverse and economically vulnerable populations in our state—have the same access to care as their peers at four-year institutions,” Stefani stated in a news release.
The bill would expand a 2023 state law that mandates abortion pills be provided on public university campuses in California.
Since then, nearly 1,700 abortions have been performed on California State University and University of California campuses, according to annual reports from the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, campuses did 365 abortions. The next year, there were 688 abortions. For the 2024-2025 academic year, the most recent numbers available, 646 abortions were reported.
Stefani’s bill would increase those numbers by requiring all public community colleges with student health centers to offer and advertise abortion pills, also known as medication abortions. Those without health centers on campus would be required to refer students to outside abortion providers. If the bill passes, it will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2029.
Additionally, the bill would begin requiring public universities to “promote awareness of the services for abortion by medication techniques that the student health center offers, provide information on those services to students, and post the availability of those services on its internet website.” That portion of the bill would go into effect at the beginning of 2028.
The most recent action on the bill was a 5-2 vote by the Senate Standing Committee on Education on July 1. The bill passed the state Assembly in May.
The Student Senate For California Community Colleges supports the bill. Claire Densmore, the legislative affairs director, told The College Fix that the bill would “make reproductive health care more practically accessible for community college students on campus.”
“Students often seek abortions because of financial hardship, lack of childcare, housing insecurity, pressure from partners or family, or concerns about balancing school and parenthood,” Herb Geraghty, a spokesperson for Secular Pro-Life, told The Fix via email.
Monica Snyder, executive director at Secular Pro-Life, pointed out that expanding abortions to community colleges also doesn’t solve the supposed access challenges that its sponsor claims.
“Even if an access gap did exist, health center dispensation of pills doesn’t solve the timeliness problem these bills claim to address. Medication abortion is slower than procedural abortion, not faster: it requires initial dispensation, a recommended follow-up one to two weeks later, and then up to 1 in 7 patients need procedural intervention to complete the abortion anyway,” Snyder told The College Fix in an email last week….
From the College Fix
Leftist ideological creep is a growing cancer in America. The only solution is to remove the tumor and the metastases. If you have leftist friends, you need to cut them out of your life. Why are you friends with them anyway? What can a leftist bring to a friendship that could possibly improve your life? Leftists stand for lies, evil, and destruction. I have no leftist friends, and I am proud of that.
Reply to remove the tumor: The leftist ideology is truly a cancer on America. It’s time America wake up to this growing menace or you will lose your country. America is in the middle of very spiritual warfare. America turn back to God. End Abortion Now. Adoption is the option.
Since the horrible 1960s era, I, too, have had to minimize contact with immoral leftists– stay nice, but at a comfortable distance. And pray for them. When the hippie era got going, in the 1960s, my friends and I stayed away from those who decided to become radical, leftists, feminists, hippies, etc. We all were daily Mass-goers, and our Faith was the center of our lives. We also stayed away from priests who were becoming radical leftists, interested in the “new” topic of sex and (immoral) modern psychology. I had to make big requests a couple of times (even of one professor who was a priest) for alternative reading lists and class projects. No dirty modern books, no dirty language. And I must be given a fair grade, too! Some intellectuals, even respected priests– have poor understandings of religion and morality. American colleges have gotten much worse since that era.
When kids went away to college, there used to be strict rules. You had to sign in and out of dorms. Dorms were under adult supervision. You had study hours, lights out at certain times, rules to govern dorm life. Good dress was the norm. Academic standards were high. Anyone caught getting drunk, partying wildly and misbehaving, or boys and girls with sexual promiscuity would be punished, and maybe expelled and sent home. There were no drugs poisoning our young people, destroying their lives. Colleges and universities had the responsibility to protect and guide young people who boarded there. The very few girls who got pregnant were sent home to their families. Our society must again start teaching kids to live by good morals and good manners. And to serve God and fellowman in our society. Sex belongs only in marriage, and in marriage it is elevated far beyond the gutters of sin to holiness in the Sacrament of Matrimony and child-bearing. Motherhood is sacred. Kids must learn these things from their earliest childhood days. Faith in God and church/synagogue attendance should be encouraged for all in our society. Premarital sex is a serious sin, and abortion is murder– a far worse sin. We need to completely change our society and all our schools back to Judeo-Christian morality and teach, guide and prepare kids for a good future in adulthood.
Reply to Kids need proper guidance: You are 100% right. Why anyone would give you a thumbs down for your very thoughtful comment is beyond me. End Abortion Now. Adoption is the option.
I agree with you, and am not surprised that there is no inkling among our blessed legislators that something is very wrong with the moral fiber of society–and the most important portion of society so afflicted would be their very selves. They are lost in a sea of nihilism and have nothing wherewith to guide college students’ sexual behavior other than killing their babies. If God doesn’t judge us for this sin, He will have to apolgize to Sodom and Gomorrah, as the saying goes.
God bless you, Restrainer abd Daniel Gallup. It is a terrible thing that so many over-educated fools who end up as college administrators and and political leaders have no understanding of how to run a good school and help form good students to help create a good future for our society. Good future adult citizens cannot be formed in wayward, rebellious students who are allowed, even encouraged, to break school rules, party all the time, get drunk, use drugs, and become alcoholics or dope addicts, get picked up by police for committing crimes, and behave promiscuously — and next, murder their infant sons and daughters in their mothers’ wombs. Plus, gay kids are encouraged to commit tons of gay sex acts. What a horrible way for kids to start their futures. What a horrible future society results from all of that. Many “educated” people are so dumb.