California’s Proposed Constitutional Amendment Would Guarantee Right to Abortion through Ninth Month
Originally published at National ReviewThe California legislature has placed a proposal on the November ballot that would elevate and expand the existing legality of abortion to a state constitutional right.
Of course, abortion is already legal in California, as the resolution makes clear. From SCA 10:
Existing law, the Reproductive Privacy Act, declares that every individual possesses a fundamental right of privacy with respect to personal reproductive decisions and prohibits the state from denying or interfering with a person’s right to choose or obtain an abortion before viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the person.
But that once unremarkable approach to regulating abortion in liberal states is apparently too restrictive for today’s pro-abortion activist legislature. The proposed constitutional amendment does away with viability altogether, creating an absolute right to abortion at any time during gestation for any reason whatsoever:
The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives. This section is intended to further the constitutional right to privacy guaranteed by Section 1, and the constitutional right to not be denied equal protection guaranteed by Section 7. Nothing herein narrows or limits the right to privacy or equal protection.
Talk about abortion extremism! If the proposed amendment passes a vote of the people, which is almost certain, the only way to enact any limitations in the Golden Abortion State — even for reasons of sex selection, eugenics purposes, or as a means of providing a commercial supply of embryonic or fetal tissue to experimenters, as has been proposed in the bioethics discourse — would be for the people to enact a contrary constitutional amendment. Good luck with that.