Pro-Life Students Testify Against Campus Abortion Bill, Politicians Ignore Them

Senate Bill 24 in California is being shoved through by the abortion lobby and would force public universities to distribute chemical abortion drugs. Student fees would help support these abortions. SB 24 is identical to last year’s SB 320, which was vetoed by California’s former governor. But their new one is even more abortion-hungry, as is the state legislature. Read a recap of our efforts against CA Campus Abortion Bills here. 

Chemical (“toilet bowl”) abortions involve a dangerous concoction of drugs – mifepristone to kill the baby and misoprostol to expel him/her. For many mothers, it is an incredibly intense process; some describe it as the most pain they have ever experienced. It was questionably pushed through FDA approval less than 20 years ago, and dozens of women have died since then. The mentality behind chemical abortion? Let’s give women these strong abortifacient drugs without physically examining them first, tell them to go suffer on a toilet for about a day, and wish them luck.

Two Students for Life leaders went to the SB 24 hearing yesterday to testify against this egregious legislation. One of the girls, Bernadette Tasy, reflected:

Yesterday, I testified against California Senate Bill 24, a bill that would force all public universities in California to distribute the abortion pill, RU-486, from their student health centers. In a small room crowded with pro-choice activists and pro-abortion legislators (with few pro-life representatives serving on the committee), tensions were high as my colleague, Tamika Bassman, and I began our very short allowance of a total of four minutes to explain our opposition.

Our comments were ignored, and Senator Leyva did not respond to any of the three main points in my testimony regarding abundance of access to abortion in the state of California, the need for the use of student fees to fund the program, and failure rate of the abortion pill procedure according to her own past witness’ research. When a pro-life assemblyman brought up the question of how the schools would handle the biomedical “waste,” both Senator Leyva and her expert witness struggled to respond, ultimately pushing aside the question. In her response, the witness, a medical doctor, eventually got out a phrase that included the words “pregnancy tissue” and equated this “tissue” to something similar to what you would see in a heavy period. Of course, that cop-out answer should have included the words “human embryo” or “baby,” but instead, the euphemisms were used to reaffirm the false narrative that the abortion pill is a quick fix to a complex situation—and definitely not the killing of a human being.

We didn’t talk about the morality of abortion—the bill is so bad that it continues to be opposed by pro-life and pro-choice alike. According to an article written by a doctor who has testified on behalf of the bill several times, between 15-75 students will need to undergo a follow-up surgical abortion every month because the failure rate of RU-486 is between 3 and 15+%, depending on how far along the woman is in the pregnancy. Students will be taking more time out of their schedules to undergo two abortion processes to complete the abortion, when the bill promises to save students time.  Students will need to pay more in mandatory student fees for an unnecessary, morally reprehensible program that is said to save them money.

In a state with over 500 abortion providers and abortion readily available within a few miles of most campuses, this amount of access isn’t good enough, and the anti-feminist narrative that students “can’t” do anything for themselves anymore (like find the closest abortion pill provider with a simple Google search to pick up their free abortion pills), has become the pro-abortion dream.

SB 24 represents the worst of the abortion movement. An online company (TARA Health Foundation) that stands to profit quite heavily from chemical abortions has been funding this California effort all the way, while actively opposing measures designed to keep women safe from these incredibly powerful drugs. There has not been a single mainstream news story following yesterday’s hearing about forcing schools to become abortion vendors. The whole thing is absurdly shady and malicious.

Women have died following complications from these drugs. It’s impossible to safely “prescribe” RU-486 to a pregnant mother without a physical examination, a regulation that the chemical abortion industry is working hard to remove and keep removed. This industry themselves are carrying out a “study” on chemical abortion and acting like anyone can take it seriously despite the obvious bias. SB 24 is disgusting and widely unsupported – which apparently doesn’t concern the extreme “abortion before safety” legislators in California. #RUSerious?