The California legislature is considering several bills that have deadly implications, especially for vulnerable children in the womb. We urge Californians and non-Californians alike to learn about these proposals, as California is the breeding ground for state and federal legislation.
Senate Bill 742 would impose hefty fines – and jail terms – on anyone picketing within 300 feet of any vaccination site. The bill does not limit the picketing to COVID vaccine protests or sites that provide COVID shots. Planned Parenthood offers STD vaccines (e.g., Gardasil), which means they are a “vaccination site,” so sidewalk counselors would be prohibited from holding signs on the public sidewalk outside every Planned Parenthood in California.
This bill has NOTHING to do with COVID and EVERYTHING to do with suppressing pro-life speech. If it passes, it will be challenged and struck down, but the fact that legislators are willing to resort to such obviously unconstitutional measures is deeply troubling. We have registered our strong opposition to SB 742.
California legislators are looking to expand the state’s FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinics) Act by adding new crimes and enhancing the penalties for existing provisions. SB 32 would make it a crime to film, record, or photograph an abortionist, abortion assistant (including escorts), or abortion clinic patient within 100 feet of the entrance to an abortion mill with the intent to intimidate that person from “becoming or remaining” a patient, abortionist, or assistant. We often encourage pro-lifers to keep a photographic record while they are on the sidewalk, just in case they are harassed or assaulted. It is not hard to imagine how this provision could be used against sidewalk counselors if a woman is photographed or recorded and then decides she no longer wants Planned Parenthood to kill her baby. Under the bill, the pro-lifer could face felony charges.
SB 32 also requires local police officers to report so-called “anti-reproductive-rights crime-related calls for assistance” to the California Attorney General. Note that it says nothing about calls related to crimes committed against pro-lifers. As I’ve reported before, we are seeing a disturbing increase in the number of assaults, threats, harassment, attacks, and other crimes against sidewalk counselors and others outside abortion clinics.
Another Senate Bill, SB 245, would make it a crime for insurance companies to impose deductibles, copayments, or any other costs on all abortions and abortion-related services, including treatment for botched abortions. Not surprisingly, SB 245 is one of Planned Parenthood’s 2021 legislative priorities.
Employers, including religious entities, already have to offer coverage for elective abortions in California. Under SB 245, those abortions will have to be fully paid for by insurance providers…and subscribers. Life Legal filed numerous complaints on behalf of churches and residents protesting the abortion mandate. A similar mandate in New York has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Another Planned Parenthood priority is AB 1184, which would prohibit insurance companies from giving information about so-called “sensitive services,” including abortion and gender reassignment, to the parents of children seeking those services. This means parents – who often pay insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles for their adult and minor children – are not allowed to find out what types of “services” their kids are receiving from Planned Parenthood and other entities that prey on children.
Basically, Planned Parenthood wants to be your child’s parent.
Assembly Bill 32 expands reimbursement for “tele-health” (audio or video) services, including chemical abortions. Earlier this year, the Biden administration abolished safeguards that required women to take the first drug of the chemical abortion regimen in the presence of a physician. Instead, abortion drugs are prescribed by video and delivered without a woman ever having to leave her home. Abortions have become a “do it yourself” procedure with fully-formed babies being delivered in bathrooms and flushed down the toilet. We strongly objected to this reckless move and we oppose any measure that expands deadly DIY abortions.
Finally, SB 380 strips the few existing protections from California’s “End of Life Option Act,” which authorized physician-assisted suicide. Instead of requiring people to wait at least 15 days before making the irreversible decision to kill themselves, they will be able to get a lethal dose of barbiturates in just 48 hours. The bill also removes the law’s “sunset” provision that would otherwise require assisted suicide to be evaluated and reauthorized in 2026. Over 2000 people have received lethal prescriptions under the law so far and of those, 65% have committed suicide using drugs given them by their “doctors.” Most of those prescriptions were written by a handful of suicide specialists, including Lonny Shavelson who stood by and did nothing while a man was violently murdered under the guise of “aid-in-dying.”
Life Legal is currently challenging the End of Life Option Act and we strongly oppose SB 380.
If you live in California, you can click here to find your state representative and register opposition to these bills.