A link is available to contact the Governor: https://tinyurl.com/StopSB24
SB 24, opposed by the State Department of Finance, is a needless expansion of the practice of abortion and requires State Universities to provide the chemical method of abortion to college women. The measure is currently being railroaded through the State Legislature. If it reaches the Governor’s desk, Governor Newsom should veto it.
This measure is not a wise investment. The Department of Finance points out this in their statement of opposition, citing both the diversion of finances from other more worthwhile investments as well as the lack of any expertise in the university systems to administer the program on campuses. These cautions should be heeded.
SB 24 will make university administrations even more complicit, further enabling the violent exploitation of university women that has been brought to light by the “Me-Too” movement. The measure, proposed to provide a response to unplanned pregnancy, offers no reporting mechanisms in the cases where women have been raped on campus. The silence of SB 24 in these tragic cases speaks loudly about the institutional indifference for women and children in these circumstances. Women deserve safer, more respectful, environments on state campuses, not more ways for the universities to hide their victimization.
The truth about SB 24 is now clear: it is not about health care, it’s about partisan posturing, consolidating the State Government’s aversion to any restrictions of abortion.
The promoters of this ideological measure have argued for its necessity without any definitive data. This has been the consistent pattern of the abortion industry because California chooses not to keep statistics on the use of abortion in the state. Other vital public health statistics, even euthanasia, are more thoroughly recorded and documented than abortion. This lack of information means that the Legislature is acting in the dark, being led by the hand by those fixated on hiding the consequences of abortion on women.
Six months ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom took a courageous stand and instituted a moratorium on carrying-out the state’s death penalty, citing statistics showing that the State-sanctioned practice was “unevenly and unfairly applied to people of color, people with mental disabilities, and people who cannot afford costly legal representation.”
Many of us support the Governor’s action because of the moral imperative we all share to respect the dignity of human life. The use of the death penalty is no longer necessary and is an obstacle to the social promotion of the dignity of the human person.
Those of us who hold to this moral principle also assert that there is an even greater moral clarity regarding the practice of State-sanctioned abortions inflicted on many of the same populations cited by the Governor as well as other vulnerable groups. In the case of abortions, young fetal citizens gestating in their mothers’ wombs are clearly innocent. Borrowing from the official statement from the Governor’s office, they have certainly been “wrongfully convicted”. They are unnecessarily condemned because of a lack of moral vision and will. At its root, the practice of abortion is a “human error” that is “irreversible and irreparable”.
Governor Gavin Newsom should consider a moratorium on the use of abortion because it is “unevenly and unfairly applied” to people of color, people who are poor, the selective abortion of girls, and those with disabilities. He should begin by vetoing SB 24 and call for a more thorough documentation and informed dialogue on how to best serve young women as well as the State’s most vulnerable citizens, the unborn.