A new California law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month will require public colleges to give students the ability to access abortion medication. This College Student Right to Access Act will go into effect in 2023. 

UCs and CSUs in California already provide contraceptive and sexual health services on campus, but Newsom’s new law will provide even more birth control coverage to California college students. 

PRO: This law is a good thing and it makes sense. Abortion pills are necessary when other contraceptives fall short. 

Accessibility 

“Access to safe, holistic and accessible sexual and reproductive health care is essential to everyone’s health and wellness,” said Karen Boyce, director of Health Promotion & Wellness. “Providing as many of these sexual and reproductive health services as possible here on campus has been a long SF State commitment.”

Students should be able to have quick and easy access to obtaining abortion pills. In 2015, women between ages 15 and 44 have the most abortions. For every 1,000 live births there were 188 abortions according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

There are more than 400,000 women enrolled in colleges in California, according to the Associated Press. 

“I believe it’s hard to obtain one (abortion pill) outside of campus,” said Aleksandra Serebrina, secretary of the Political Science Student Association. “If the abortion pill were to be available on campus students won’t need to go into the city to get one– that would allow them to study or work more.” 

Last year, former California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill, arguing that it was not necessary to have abortion medication on campus because abortion services were available off campus. According to a study by the Journal of Adolescent Health, about 62% of students live 30 minutes away from the nearest abortion facility. At SF State, the closest abortion facility is 20 minutes away.

Expense 

Medication for an abortion cost $350 to $950, depending on where you get it and your health insurance, according to Planned Parenthood.

In an article with the Golden Gate Xpress Roger Elrod, director of Student Health Services at SF State said that students who may need to get abortion medication won’t need to pay for it out-of-pocket. 

“Having an abortion pill on campus allows for students to have an easy and accessible resource,” says Angeline Noguera, pre-nursing SF State student. “Some students may not have the insurance or the finances to go to certain hospitals or they may not have the ability to travel to a planned parenthood.” 

Open up the conversation

Now that abortion medication will be accessible on campus this can be an opportunity to open up more conversation on abortion to campus. SB 24 allows college campuses to be more educated on what is abortion and its consequences. 

“This new bill and how it contrasts with the attacks on access to sexual health care around the country will have a lot of people talking about abortion and healthcare as a human right,” Boyce said.

When we don’t openly talk about abortion or when we shame women for wanting to have one, it may cause women into turning into have an unsafe abortion. 

If women want an abortion, she should have one and she should not be shamed for wanting to one. No person should feel pressured into becoming a parent especially when one is not ready. 

The talk around abortion isvery active throughout the past few years and is still a major topic discussed by states such as Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Other states have banned abortions while other states made abortion legal. 

CON:

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 24 or the College Student Right to Access Act which will require public colleges to give students the ability to access abortion medication on Oct. 11. The expansion law will go into effect in 2023. 

UCs and CSUs in California already provide contraceptive and sexual health services on campus, but Newsom’s new law will provide even more birth control coverage to California college students. 

Newsom was wrong to sign SB 24 into law. The abortion pill law is an overreach by the California state government to impose more power to colleges and universities in the name of healthcare access when there are plenty of facilities already. 

Accessibility

There are 110 Planned Parenthood clinics in California spread across the state, with location information on their website. And that number is about a fifth of the 512 facilities that provide abortion access to women in the state, according to the Guttmacher Institute. About 152 makeup actual clinics. 

In 2017, there were 132,680 abortions administered to women in the state by the Guttmacher Institute numbers and those that figure is down from 2014 by 16%. While there was a 6% increase in clinics in California. 

The numbers show abortions are down even when access increases so SB 24 doesn’t look like it will do much good. And Newsom signed the bill not just to provide access because there was a lack in access but as a political response to other states restricting abortions. 

“As other states and the federal government go backward, restricting reproductive freedom, in California we are moving forward.”

Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, recognized the unnecessary actions SB 24 gives to the state and colleges and he vetoed identical legislation last year. 

Expense

SB 24 requires that “a total of at least $10,290,000 in private moneys is made available to the fund in a timely manner on or after Jan. 1, 2020,” according to the text of the bill. Newsom’s own Department of Finance were not optimistic about that fund being fully attained and opposed the bill. 

A combination of private funds mostly split between the Women’s Foundation of California and the Tara Health Foundation supposedly will front the cash but have offered no concrete assurances. As of right this opinion there is no guarantee of payment which comes due soon. 

The abortion pills themselves cost between $300 to $800 on there own but, in California Medicaid has coverage and private plans require the medication to be covered. And the Affordable Care Act mandates plans and insurance providers to offer dependent coverage up until the age of 26. 

Typically, the age range for undergrads is 18 to 22 based on a 4 year degree pathway so there is coverage built in for students who live under their parents plan. 

Open up the conversation

There should be no censoring of converstation pertaining to abortion access on college campuses, as per the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. The problem is the state of California expanding their reach into the colleges and universities. 

The true way for abortion pill conversation to be open is to make it a ballot issue and let the voters decide like they have down for a pethora of issues. 

A majority support for abortion itself is a divisive issue in the super majority democratic controlled state with just 57% of Californians say abortion should be legal in all or most cases with 5% undecided. A proposition on the 2020 ballot should put to the test whether the abortion pills or abortions in general are welcome in the Golden State.