New California bill would fund all abortion costs, including airfare
In April 2021 the City of Los Angeles prepared for the 93rd Academy Awards by evicting homeless people from their encampments in the area, threatening to demolish their property if they did not leave in time.
"They came to us about a week ago saying that we had to move by Friday 6 p.m. because they were trying to clean up for the Oscars and they told us if we didn’t move, they were gonna just demolish our stuff," a homeless man told Fox News at the time.
Currently, Los Angeles County is home to over 40% of all California’s homeless, which in turn is responsible for over half of the country’s unsheltered population due to lack of adequate and available services.
According to a New York Times report, 2,000 homeless people died last year in California, hundreds of whom did so in plain view of passersby. At least 287 homeless people died on sidewalks.
But while California’s homeless may be grossly neglected, a new piece of California legislation would provide the homeless with lodging, transportation and meals – if they are for abortion purposes.
SB-1142, introduced in February, aims to pay for all abortion costs, including airfare, for everyone, including “unhoused people”.
According to the bill, the State of California will pay for all abortion-related “practical support services, such as airfare, lodging, ground transportation, gas money, meals, dependent childcare, doula support, and translation services, to help a person access and obtain an abortion.”
The bill is clear that these services will not just be provided to Californians, but women “and other people” in other states who wish to have an abortion.
“As more patients come from out of state, abortion fund organizations, abortion providers, and other community-based organizations that offer practical support need financial support to meet the demand of people needing care,” reads the bill. “The organizations providing support are heavily impacted by the increase in abortion restrictions across the country and the need for patients to travel to receive care.”
The legislation laments that if the United States Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade – as was suggested in a leaked draft of a Supreme Court majority opinion – abortion will not be as accessible to women “and other people”.
“If the United States Supreme Court overturns the protections under Roe v. Wade, people in over one-half of the states in the country, over 36,000,000 women and other people who may become pregnant, will lose access to abortion care.”
Entities like Planned Parenthood would be given seemingly unlimited grants, which would pay for abortion navigators, patient navigators, community health workers services, case management support, training volunteers and staff, coordination, and research.
Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics will be able to bill the state for any costs they write off as associated with abortion services or even ancillary services.
Funding will be provided for “costs associated with enabling guarantees that meet the requirements of this section to assist people with practical support services, including staffing and administrative costs.”
It is unclear how much funding will be required to provide abortion to anyone in the country that wants one, along with all related services, but it is likely to be more than services for the homeless.
