If Proposition 1 passes in California, a new amendment in the state constitution would declare that the state “shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s…right to choose to have an abortion.” A UC Berkeley IGS poll found that 71% of registered voters will vote yes on the abortion amendment. Opponents of the measure state that a fetus could be aborted late in pregnancy. CA Governor Gavin Newsom used $100,000 of his reelection fund to rent billboard space promoting pro-abortion views in Texas and other Republican-led states. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone spoke out against Prop 1, stating that Prop 1 would allow third-trimester abortions.

We agree with Governor Newsom and believe what a woman does to her body is her choice and not up to the other people around her. The struggle for women’s rights have always been a concern in the United States and now with the overturning of Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court is taking away more rights from women.

The CDC reported that there were about 630,000 abortions performed in the US in 2019 (the latest count). The Guttmacher Institute reported about 930,000 abortions in the US in 2020. 56% of legal abortions in clinical settings occurred through surgery, while 44% were medication abortions with pills. In 2000 the FDA approved abortion pills for legal abortion procedures. Guttmacher declared that in 2020 over half of all abortions were with pills such as mifepristone and misoprostol.

Pew Research stated that most of the women who had abortions were in their 20s (57%). Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 9% who had abortions. In the 30 states that reported ethnic data on abortion to the CDC, 38% of all abortions were Black females, 33% White females, 21% Latinas, 7% Asian females and other ethnicities.

According to The New York Times abortions are now banned in at least 14 states including Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Kentucky. Legislating against abortion will not prevent women from getting abortions, perhaps leading them to get unsafe abortions. The World Health Organization reports that from 2010- 2014, 45% of all induced abortions were unsafe and occurring largely in developing countries (97% of unsafe abortion activity).

The National Library of Medicine reported of cases of women consuming toxic fluids like bleach and livestock manure, as well as methods of external injury like “inflicting trauma to the abdomen.” All of these unsafe methods may rise with the new restrictions on abortion in states like Texas and Georgia.

A 2004 Guttmacher Institute study of 1,209 abortion patients revealed that women chose to have abortions because a child would interfere with her work or education (74%), she could not afford to raise the child (73%), and she did not want to be a single mother (48%).