California is one signature away from extending its campus abortion pill mandate from four-year public universities to community colleges.
Assembly Bill 2540 would require public community colleges that operate student health centers — some 92 to 93 campuses — to offer access to abortion pills. Campuses without health centers would have to refer students to outside providers. The Assembly first passed the bill May 26 and the Senate passed it Aug. 27. The final version was approved Aug. 30 and presented to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 10.
What happens if signed?
If signed, the community-college access requirements would take effect Jan. 1, 2029, and the costs to implement the law would be excessive. Some estimates from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office have ranged from roughly $7 million to $27.9 million in one-time startup costs systemwide, plus several million more each year to maintain services.
The bill, authored by Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, extends a 2019 law requiring public universities across the stae to provide abortion pills to its students. According to the College Fix’s analysis of figures from the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, since the passing of that law, “nearly 1,700 abortions have been performed on California State University and University of California campuses.”
Stefani’s bill would also require 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.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Sara Holliday and originally published by Decision Magazine.
