California is now the front line of America’s maternal mortality crisis

By Sylvia Ghazarian
April 19, 2026

California has become a refuge for reproductive care, but it’s now absorbing the consequences of a national public health failure. The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among high-income countries, and it’s only getting worse.

A growing body of research shows that abortion bans are driving this crisis, increasing preventable deaths, especially among communities already burdened by systemic inequities. The Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP), a national abortion fund headquartered in Los Angeles, is witnessing this surge firsthand, as more patients cross state lines and require financial support to access even the most basic, time-sensitive care.

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2026-04-19/california-maternal-mortality-crisis

19.04.2026

Commentary

black maternal mortality

Gender Equity Policy Institute

maternal mortality

Sylvia Ghazarian

Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project

Wading without Roe — where do you go?

California becomes a last-resort haven for patients seeking to end pregnancies

By Audrey Tomlin • Bay City News
Oct 11, 2025

In September 2023, Marcela Bermudez bought a one-way ticket, stepped on a plane in Houston, Texas, and flew more than 1,000 miles to Los Angeles, California. She was 25 years old. She was 14 weeks pregnant. She did not want to be. Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing the federal constitutional right to an abortion, had been overturned 15 months earlier. In Texas, abortion was banned.

Bermudez was one of nearly 7,000 patients who traveled to California from out of state for an abortion that year. She, alongside other patients who crossed state lines for abortion care, shared memories of long, costly travels, overwhelming stigma, and the need for much effort and a little bit of luck — the right friend or a supportive partner — to receive their abortions.

Continued: https://localnewsmatters.org/2025/10/11/wading-without-roe-california-a-last-resort-haven-for-patients-trying-to-end-pregnancies/

Her miscarriage showed the limits of California’s abortion protections. Where you live matters

May 21, 2025
By Kristen Hwang, CalMatters

Anna Nusslock never wanted to be the face of a new kind of reproductive rights battle in California, but when a small Catholic hospital refused to provide an abortion that would end her miscarriage, Nusslock girded herself for a long and difficult conflict.

Nusslock felt her civil rights were being violated, she said, even as she lay in the hospital bed curled in on herself, bleeding and mourning the loss of her twin girls. The doctor had said that her pregnancy needed to be terminated immediately to protect her from infection and other serious complications but hospital policy prohibited it, according to two lawsuits filed by Nusslock and California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Continued: https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/05/21/her-miscarriage-showed-the-limits-of-californias-abortion-protections-where-you-live-matters/

California Universities Are Required To Offer Students Abortion Pills. A Lot Just Don’t Mention It

One year after California became the first state to require that its public universities provide the abortion pill to students, LAist found that basic information on where or how students can obtain the medication is lacking and, often, nonexistent.

By Jackie Fortiér and Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
Jan 31, 2024

When Deanna Gomez found out she was pregnant in September 2023, it turned her world on end.
She was a college senior in San Bernardino and didn’t feel ready to have a baby. She was working two jobs, doing well in her classes, and she was on track to graduate in December.

She used birth control. Motherhood was not in the plan. Not yet.

Continued: https://laist.com/news/education/abortion-pill-california-universities-students-unaware-sb-24

31.01.2024

Commentary

abortion pills

abortion pills at universities

California Brings First-Time Lawsuit Against Anti-Abortion Movement’s ‘Abortion Pill Reversal’ Scheme

“Those who are struggling with the complex decision to get an abortion deserve support and trustworthy guidance—not lies and misinformation,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

10/9/2023
by JENIFER MCKENNA and CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit on Sept. 21 against a chain of California crisis pregnancy centers and its national parent organization for false advertising of “abortion pill reversal” (APR)—an unproven and possibly dangerous high-dose progesterone intervention the anti-abortion movement claims can “reverse” an underway medication abortion. This is the first lawsuit in the country challenging the CPC industry’s promotion of APR.

AG Bonta’s complaint charges RealOptions Obria, a five-site crisis pregnancy center chain in Northern California, and the Ohio-based Heartbeat International with violating California’s False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition law by falsely advertising “abortion pill reversal” as safe and effective. The lawsuit seeks an injunction to block further dissemination of the misleading claims, in addition to other remedies and penalties available under state law.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/09/abortion-pill-reversal/

09.10.2023

News

abortion pill reversal

abortion reversal

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

American Medical Association

anti-choice deception

anti-choice disinformation

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice misogyny

Betsy Butler

California Women’s Law Center

crisis pregnancy centers

Designed to Deceive

False Advertising law

George Delgado

Heartbeat International

Mary Davenport

Obria

pregnancy care centers

Privacy International

progesterone

RealOptions Obria

Rob Bonta

Society for Family Planning

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine

The Alliance of State Advocates

Unfair Competition law

The doctors bringing abortion care from SF General to Wichita

by GRIFFIN JONES
JULY 27, 2023

A 19-year-old girl walks up to the clinic’s front desk, a couple of her friends trailing behind. Everyone is yawning after the eight-hour overnight drive from eastern Arkansas to Wichita, Kansas. After a wait, the woman is ushered into a private room and greeted by Dr. Jennifer Kerns, an abortion provider, who relays the encounter.

Kerns, too, arrived that morning after an eight-hour journey of her own, via several flights from San Francisco to Kansas.

Continued: https://missionlocal.org/2023/07/the-doctors-bringing-abortion-care-from-san-francisco-general-to-wichita/

27.07.2023

traveling for abortion

Why ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ will be California’s next abortion battleground

BY KRISTEN HWANG
JUNE 16, 2023

In California, less than two-thirds of counties have an abortion clinic. But nearly 80% have at least one “crisis pregnancy center,” according to a database compiled by CalMatters.

Abortion rights advocates and lawmakers have long accused these centers — also known as anti-abortion centers — of coercing vulnerable people into remaining pregnant by misleading them about abortion procedures and contraceptive methods. In rural areas with acute primary care shortages, “crisis pregnancy centers” outnumber abortion clinics 11 to 2, a CalMatters analysis shows.

Continued: https://calmatters.org/health/2023/06/crisis-pregnancy-centers-california/

Even in blue California, attempts to regulate controversial antiabortion centers continue to fail

BY MACKENZIE MAYS
MAY 28, 2023

ROSEVILLE, Calif. — At Sierra Pregnancy and Health, Executive Director Cary Wilcox beams with pride holding a plastic model of what will soon be a new mobile clinic thanks to a flood of donations after its “biggest year ever.”

Outside the nondescript nonprofit just 20 miles from the California capital, a sign advertises “abortion pill reversal” — a practice involving the hormone progesterone that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists deems “unethical” and “not supported by science.”

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-28/anti-abortion-pregnancy-centers-are-expanding-as-californias-attempts-at-regulation-fail

Miles Apart: Texas and California Lawmakers Stake Opposite Corners of Abortion Policy

It’s about 1,500 miles from Austin to Sacramento, but Texas and California lawmakers are a million miles apart on how to treat private data related to reproductive health.

5/5/2023
by JENNIFER PINSOF and HAYLEY TSUKAYAMA

State lawmakers in Texas and California are staking out opposite corners of digital public policy in the post-Roe era: in Texas by trying to ban online speech about abortion, and in California by trying to protect those seeking abortions from dragnet-style digital surveillance.

How these states legislate reproductive data privacy and information access could affect millions of vulnerable people nationwide, because the internet doesn’t stop at state borders.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/05/05/texas-california-abortion-privacy/

06.05.2023

Commentary

Assembly Bill 793

digital surveillance and abortion

digital technology and abortion

California will cut ties with Walgreens over the company’s plan to drop abortion pills

March 7, 2023
EMILY OLSON

Last week, Walgreens said it will not distribute abortion pills in states where Republican officials have threatened legal action. Now a blue state says it will cut ties with the pharmacy giant because of the move.

"California won't be doing business with @walgreens – or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women's lives at risk," Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a tweet yesterday with a link to news coverage of Walgreen's decision.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/07/1161590750/california-walgreens-mifepristone-abortion-pill

07.03.2023