Announces upcoming meetings with reproductive justice advocates throughout the state
OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today reaffirmed California’s commitment to protecting reproductive rights in the face of unprecedented threats to safe and legal abortion. Over the next few weeks, Attorney General Bonta will meet with reproductive health advocates throughout California to help ensure that Californians know their rights and their protections under state law, and how to access reproductive healthcare. Despite attacks on reproductive rights by states seeking to take our nation backward when it comes to the right to choose, abortion remains a legally protected right, especially in California.
“California values and protects reproductive rights, freedom, and justice,” said Attorney General Bonta. “My office will continue our fight to preserve and protect access to reproductive healthcare. Our position has been clear from the beginning: Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for half a century and it should be upheld. Millions of individuals over multiple generations have relied on the constitutional guarantee recognized in Roe v. Wade, which allows individuals to make the deeply personal decision of whether to carry a pregnancy to term. We won't backslide — California law protects reproductive freedom, including safe and legal abortion. As our state's chief law enforcement officer, I will use the full force of the law to defend Californians' reproductive rights. Reproductive freedom is non-negotiable, and we will continue to fight to defend it.”
Attorney General Bonta has made the protection of reproductive rights a top priority:
- In February 2022, Attorney General Bonta took steps to ensure reproductive healthcare, which is guaranteed by law, is being provided to incarcerated individuals.
- In January 2022, Attorney General Bonta issued a legal alert to all California district attorneys, police chiefs, and sheriffs stating that section 187 of the California Penal Code was intended to hold accountable those who inflict harm on pregnant individuals, resulting in miscarriage or stillbirth, not to punish people who suffer the loss of their pregnancy. In April 2022, Attorney General Bonta further urged other state attorneys general to review their laws and issue similar alerts where necessary.
- In December 2021, Attorney General Bonta led a coalition of state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief supporting a challenge to an Arizona “reason ban” that prohibits abortion when it is sought because of the presence of a fetal abnormality.
- In November 2021, Attorney General Bonta joined a coalition of 20 state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief urging the court to halt certain regulations passed in Indiana that restrict access to abortion, arguing that several provisions of the state’s laws place an undue burden on the ability of individuals to exercise their constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before viability.
- In October 2021, Attorney General Bonta took action against Senate Bill 8 — Texas’ unconstitutional abortion ban — by joining an amicus brief in support of challengers of the law and urging the U.S. Supreme Court to restore an injunction barring enforcement of the law.
- In September 2021, Attorney General Bonta led a multistate amicus brief, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, concerning Mississippi’s ban on pre-viability abortions.
- In September 2021, Attorney General Bonta joined a multistate coalition in filing an amicus brief in Planned Parenthood v. Wilson — a case challenging South Carolina’s unconstitutional abortion ban.
- In July 2021, Attorney General Bonta co-led a coalition of state attorneys general in submitting a comment letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services supporting their reversal of the Trump Administration’s 2019 Separate Abortion Billing Rule that violated Section 1303 of the Affordable Care Act.
