Press Release California
Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice California Condemns U.S. Supreme Court Decision Overturning Roe v. Wade
For Immediate Release: Friday, June 24, 2022
Contact: [email protected]
California — Today, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade and ending the constitutional right to abortion in the United States as we know it.
NARAL Pro-Choice California Director Shannon Olivieri Hovis released the following statement in response:
“The anti-choice supermajority on the Supreme Court has done the unconscionable by overturning Roe v. Wade and opening the door for states to move to ban abortion. This decision will harm millions of people by allowing extremist politicians to push abortion care out of reach. However, our fight for reproductive freedom is far from over, and there is no doubt that this decision will galvanize voters in California and across the country. With our freedom to make our own decisions about our lives, families, and futures under unprecedented threat, you can count on Californians—including our more than 367,000 members in the state—mobilizing to elect champions up and down the ballot who will honor our values as a Reproductive Freedom State.”
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will have a sweeping and devastating impact. Now that Roe has been overturned, roughly half of the states in the country are at risk of banning abortion. Of those, 13 have “trigger bans” in place to ban abortion automatically. If other states predicted to ban abortion outright do so, California is expected to see a 2,923% increase in women of reproductive age whose nearest abortion provider would be in the state—from 46,000 to 1.4 million.
The people who will be hurt most by the Supreme Court’s decision are those who already face barriers to accessing abortion care—including women; Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those working to make ends meet; the LGBTQ+ community; immigrants; young people; those living in rural communities; and people with disabilities. California is home to more than a quarter of the nation’s healthcare facilities that provide abortion care. California will have an outsized role to play in helping people from all across the country access the abortion care they need.
NARAL Pro-Choice California and our more than 367,000 members are already ramping up our work to elect candidates up and down the ballot who will take bold action to safeguard and expand abortion rights. In May, NARAL, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and EMILY’s List announced a partnership to collectively spend a historic $150 million on the 2022 midterms to ensure the election of reproductive freedom champions, and California voters voted for more than 40 NARAL-endorsed lawmakers to win their primaries and advance to the general election in November. Read more about NARAL’s endorsed candidates here.
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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.