Life Legal’s Katie Short appeared Tuesday, August 6, before Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Clark, to argue for summary judgment against California’s SB 245, the “Abortion Accessibility Act,” which privileges abortion over childbirth by compelling insurance companies to waive out-of-pocket costs for the one and not the other.
SB 245 was introduced by pro-abortion State Senator Lena Gonzalez in 2021, passed by the legislature, and signed into law by pro-abortion Governor Gavin Newsom. It went into effect at the beginning of 2023.
We recognized that the act discriminated in favor of the “choice” of child-killing and against the choice of child-bearing – and sued, on behalf of Bakersfield Crisis Pregnancy Center, with a view toward enjoining enforcement of the law. Our legal grounds were solid: the act violated long-standing California case law and long-acknowledged “fundamental rights.”
You see, back in 1973, a less-bloodthirsty California legislature passed a budget that restricted Medi-Cal funding for abortion while fully funding childbirth for indigent mothers. Abortionists sued for equal treatment – and won. The explicit right to privacy in the California constitution was interpreted to mandate equal treatment for abortion and childbirth. The “Reproductive Privacy Act” of 2002 reinforced this ruling by defining the unhindered choice between the two as a “fundamental right.”
But SB 245 doesn’t respect that right. It grants abortion special status. So we turned the pro-aborts’ decades-old victories against them and insisted, as they formerly had, on equal treatment for both “reproductive choices.”
The legal issue seemed so clear cut that we filed a motion for summary judgment –as did the defendants: the Department of Managed Health Care, the California Department of Insurance, and Attorney General Rob Bonta.
A large part of the state’s justification for SB 245 is the assertion that any requirement for out-of-pocket costs could delay the performance of an abortion and thus impose increasing difficulties as pregnancy progresses. This assessment is simply contrary to reality. Insured patients will be billed later, not when they get their “medical care,” and therefore will not be delayed in their decision.
Furthermore, counsel for defendants argued that the State of California already requires lots of free medical services for pregnant women. In fact, the only “care” the Legislature has required be provided for free to pregnant women is pre-natal screening for birth defects – so women can “choose” to have abortions.
While some of these arguments may seem far from the core principle of protecting human life, it is important to work within the diseased, defective, and frankly pro-abortion framework of law today – to save as many lives as possible from the machinery of death. Life Legal pursued this part of the pro-life program largely by defending the free speech rights of protesters, prayer warriors, and sidewalk counselors.
When the pro-aborts, however, expose themselves to refutation according to their own professed principles – as they have with SB 245 – it would be a shame to let the opportunity pass us by. By making “pro-choice” arguments against the law, we not only expose the hypocrisy of the abortion apologists. We also uphold and enhance the operation of pro-life pregnancy resource centers, such as our client in this case.
And that does save lives from the child-killing syndicate.
- Please pray that Judge Clark will grant our motion for summary judgment….
- Please pray that, absent such a quick win, we will prevail at trial – scheduled for September 13 and 20….