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Sacramento -- While the nation moves to limit women's access to reproductive health services, California is set to write a different story by removing barriers to abortion care. SB 1501, authored by Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, would ensure women receive safe and early access to comprehensive reproductive health care by allowing Nurse Practitioners, Certified Nurse Midwives, and Physician Assistants to perform early, safe abortion care within the terms of their licenses.
"SB 1501 would ensure that women have access to safe and early abortion services from local providers they know and trust,” Kehoe said. “It clarifies statute to provide comprehensive, better coordinated reproductive health care.”
More than half of California's counties have no accessible abortion provider. As a result, many low income and underserved women delay their abortions because they have to travel long distances or raise money for transportation and services.
Ana Rodriguez hears the stories of these women in her work as the executive director of ACCESS Women's Health Justice, an organization dedicated to assisting women in accessing abortion. Rodriguez tells the story of a woman named Silvia, who called the ACCESS Healthline seeking assistance to obtain abortion care. She lives with her four children in the Central Valley. She needed help finding childcare, money for a bus ticket to and from San Francisco, and housing while she was there.
"Every day we receive calls from women who face serious barriers to care that cause them to delay abortion care,” Rodriguez said. “No one should face these kinds of hurdles to access a simple, safe and legal medical procedure.”
SB1501 would remove these barriers to care by allowing trained practitioners to provide early, safe abortion services in the community in which they live. The bill does not expand or change the scope of practice for these clinicians, but allows them to maximize their existing skill set. These clinicians currently provide medication abortions as well as services like vasectomy and colonoscopy.
Through a pilot program of the University of California, San Francisco, more than 40 clinicians have been trained to provide early abortion care. Under the successful program, women received high quality care and reported that they were equally satisfied being treated by clinicians and by doctors and preferred receiving care in their own communities.
In 2011, Congress and state legislatures passed more than 100 laws to limit women's reproductive health choices, including defunding family planning services and erecting onerous barriers to abortion services. Meanwhile, California has long supported a woman’s personal decision regarding terminating a pregnancy, and has worked to remove barriers to care.
"California has a history of standing up to ensure access to health care," said Kehoe. "This year I hope that the California Legislature will continue our leadership in protecting women’s health when it considers a law that reduces barriers to abortion access.”
SB 1501 is co-sponsored by the ACCESS Women’s Health Justice, American Civil Liberties Union of California, NARAL Pro-Choice California and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.
