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Pro-life advocates say legislation will put pressure on students to abort unborn babies
A California bill requiring community colleges to offer abortion pills sparked praise and criticism after advancing in the state legislature this month. Supporters believe it will increase students’ access to “reproductive healthcare” while opponents say it will put more pressure on students to abort their unborn babies.
Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a Democrat who authored the bill, noted that the goal is to address “gaps in access to reproductive healthcare.”
“With the Community College Student Right to Access Act, we are closing a critical gap and ensuring that community college students—one of the most diverse and economically vulnerable populations in our state—have the same access to care as their peers at four-year institutions,” Stefani stated in a news release.
“California has led the nation in protecting reproductive rights, and this bill is the next step in making those rights a reality for all,” she said. Her office did not respond to The College Fix’s requests for comment via email.
The bill would expand a 2023 state law that mandates abortion pills be provided on public university campuses in California.
Since then, nearly 1,700 abortions have been performed on California State University and University of California campuses, according to annual reports from the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, campuses did 365 abortions. The next year, there were 688 abortions. For the 2024-2025 academic year, the most recent numbers available, 646 abortions were reported.
Stefani’s bill would increase those numbers by requiring all public community colleges with student health centers to offer and advertise abortion pills, also known as medication abortions. Those without health centers on campus would be required to refer students to outside abortion providers. If the bill passes, it will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2029.
Additionally, the bill would begin requiring public universities to “promote awareness of the services for abortion by medication techniques that the student health center offers, provide information on those services to students, and post the availability of those services on its internet website.” That portion of the bill would go into effect at the beginning of 2028.
The most recent action on the bill was a 5-2 vote by the Senate Standing Committee on Education on July 1. The bill passed the state Assembly in May.
The Student Senate For California Community Colleges supports the bill. Claire Densmore, the legislative affairs director, told The College Fix that the bill would “make reproductive health care more practically accessible for community college students on campus.”
“Students balancing school, employment, caregiving, transportation and significant financial pressures may not have the time off work and school to get a provider or services. The bill ensures students receive accurate information and meaningful assistance,” Densmore said in a recent email. “Colleges can also be flexible with how they use referrals and partnerships with other providers.”
However, several pro-life groups voiced opposition to the bill, saying it would only put more pressure on students to abort their unborn babies.
“Students often seek abortions because of financial hardship, lack of childcare, housing insecurity, pressure from partners or family, or concerns about balancing school and parenthood,” Herb Geraghty, a spokesperson for Secular Pro-Life, told The Fix via email.
“This bill does nothing to address those underlying challenges. Instead, policymakers should invest in solutions that help students succeed academically without feeling they must turn to abortion,” Geraghty said. Secular Pro-Life focuses on educating people, including college students, about abortion and the value of human life from a non-religious perspective.
Prenatal care and other pregnancy services for students who do not want abortions are lacking at many universities, College Fix analyses have found. In New York, which has a law similar to California’s, 78 colleges provide abortions, while only nine advertise prenatal care, according to one analysis.
Monica Snyder, executive director at Secular Pro-Life, pointed out that expanding abortions to community colleges also doesn’t solve the supposed access challenges that its sponsor claims.
“Even if an access gap did exist, health center dispensation of pills doesn’t solve the timeliness problem these bills claim to address. Medication abortion is slower than procedural abortion, not faster: it requires initial dispensation, a recommended follow-up one to two weeks later, and then up to 1 in 7 patients need procedural intervention to complete the abortion anyway,” Snyder told The College Fix in an email last week.
California Family Council’s Leandra Wells also spoke out against the bill during a state Senate Education Committee meeting earlier this month.
Wells shared her personal experience as a college student facing an unplanned pregnancy and highlighted the work of local pregnancy resource centers that offered her aid, The Fix previously reported.
“I was overwhelmed and afraid …This bill tells women that an abortion pill is the easiest solution, but fear is not a reason to end a life, and ending a life is not health care,” Wells said. The Fix reached out to the California Family Council for comment via email, but did not receive a response.
A spokesperson for the Community College League in California told The Fix that the organization does not have a position on the bill.
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