California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared today that the Golden State is determined to become the epicenter for the intentional killing of unborn children in the United States. Of course, he didn’t phrase it quite that way, but it is the intended outcome. At some point, people are going to have to start believing that abortion-choice advocates mean what they say. What other conclusion can concerned citizens reach when the California Future of Abortion Council files a report – conveniently located on the PlannedParenthoodAction.org website – detailing how California plans to:
- Help to cover the transportation and abortion costs for women residing out of state who want to come to California for an abortion, including paying for “gas, lodging, transportation, child care, doula support, food, lost wages, etc.” California openly sides with the abortion industry, arguing that taxpayers must be conscripted in its battle with life-affirming states.
- Demand that anyone graduating from medical school in California be required to learn how to do both chemical and aspiration abortions (I don’t see a conscience clause or religious exemption language anywhere in the report). They want to spend more taxpayers’ dollars to train clinicians, nurse practitioners, and nurse-midwives as abortionists. The Council intends to turn all Title X recipient institutions, including California state colleges and universities, into chemical abortion clinics. Under such rules, no orthodox Christian will be able to graduate from a California-based medical school; only those aspiring physicians who are willing to double as participants in child-killing need apply.
- Ramp up the training of abortionists by providing scholarships for people willing to intentionally kill innocent human beings in the womb. Also, the Council recommends that California “optimize loan repayment” but only for clinicians who are willing to kill unborn children and help to pay for liability (i.e. malpractice) insurance for abortionists and abortion clinics.
- Build a wall of protection around abortionists and their facilities to keep them from being affected by the law of other states, around individuals involved in abortion, and around people who chose to “self-manage” their abortions. For decades the narrative of a woman performing an abortion on herself was the key imagery used by abortion-choice advocates for why abortion must be legal. Now, it is apparently just another choice that requires protection. Finally, not content that California courts had struck down parental knowledge and consent laws designed to protect parental rights over whether children received invasive surgical procedures designed to eliminate the parents’ grandchildren – the Council wants all such laws completely removed from the books.
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- Monitor and eliminate any worldview other than “abortion is health care.” The Council cannot abide the presence of an alternative voice to the pro-abortion narrative. They explicitly call out “crisis pregnancy centers” (does anyone call them that anymore?), arguing “the state must take meaningful action to combat and mitigate harmful and misleading information perpetuated by Crisis Pregnancy Centers (see report by California Women’s Law Center) that can delay access to time-sensitive services.” (Even a cursory reading of this “report” instantly reveals the vitriolic bias of the writers.)
One wonders if the Council had in mind correcting Planned Parenthood’s description of aspiration abortion, which completely erases the presence of an unborn human being in the womb. Instead of calling what is in a pregnant woman’s uterus her offspring, child, or even embryo or fetus, they substitute the term “pregnancy tissue.” Then they describe how the suction cannula will “gently take the pregnancy tissue out of your uterus.” First, there is no such thing as “pregnancy tissue.” Pregnancy is a condition, not a creature. Conditions don’t have tissues. What abortion removes are the tissues of her child – a human being. And far from being “gentle,” the suction tears the body of that child to pieces, which need to be reassembled post-abortion to make sure the abortionist removed everything. I am not anticipating that the Council will require that kind of clarification of Planned Parenthood’s “harmful and misleading information.”
While the Council isn’t forthright regarding what it intends by “meaningful action,” note that the former California Attorney General and now U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, used California’s Reproductive FACT Act to attempt to require that pregnancy help organizations shill for the abortion industry by making them provide referral information to their own clients. (The Supreme Court ruled against him in NIFLA vs. Becerra, but the existence of the Reproductive FACT Act may be a preview of strategies to come.)
The Council anticipates an influx of 1.4 million women into California annually – a fascinating figure, as it is nearly double the number of women who procured abortions last year nationwide. In order for them to expect such a dramatic increase in abortion-seekers, they will have to find a way to increase the persuasiveness of their message – or silence the voices of their pro-life opponents. And that is precisely what you see when you look at their recommendations.
The Council’s goal here is to get ahead of the curve. If Dobbs is upheld by the Supreme Court, debate about the abortion issue will spring to life all across the U.S., because there will no longer be a constitutional impediment to enacting protections for unborn children. The abortion industry doesn’t want a debate about the issues regarding abortion: the nature of the being in the womb or the truth about what abortion does to that human being. They know they will lose.
The case for life is pretty simple:
It is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.
Abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being.
Therefore, abortion is wrong.
Pro-life advocates are happy to engage abortion-choice advocates on these issues, but they are not interested. This is especially true when they own the levers of government. Why debate when they have everything to lose and nothing to gain?
California government isn’t in thrall to the abortion industry – it is in league with it. The Council may be made up of representatives from the abortion industry, but Newsom was the one who started it. Expect these recommendations to gain the force of law should the Supreme Court decide to use Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to rightfully overturn Roe vs. Wade, Doe vs. Bolton, and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey – thereby returning the question of abortion to the states.
Pro-life citizens of California need to prepare now to combat abortion-choice advocacy at a level never before seen in the state. I wrote a book, Contenders, specifically to equip people to know the truth about abortion, gain the courage and skills to speak up, and then to act consistently to build a life-affirming culture. The light will need to shine vigorously, because otherwise an overwhelming darkness will not only envelop California, but devour the region. If Dobbs is upheld, that will be the pro-life moment. We dare not squander it.
Dr. Marc Newman is president of Speaker for Life and author of Contenders: A Church-Wide Strategy to Unmask Abortion, Defeat Its Advocates, Empower Christians, and Change the World
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