California Governor. Gavin Newsom signed Tuesday. One piece of legislation made pro-life advocates sick.
Assembly bill 2223 would ban coroners from conducting an inquest following fetal death “related or following known or suspected criminally induced abortion.” It would also clarify that the Reproductive Privacy Act does not allow for the criminalization of pregnancy loss.
Newsom signed the bill and promised to “fight like hell” for abortion-rights advocates as many states deal with the aftermath U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Buffy Wicks, a Democratic Assemblymember from Oakland, who wrote the legislation, said that the lawmakers made it to “ensure that no one can be criminally charged for anything that happens in utero,” which is what happened in California.
Wicks claims that approximately 1300 “pregnant” women have been prosecuted since the early aughts for stillbirths or miscarriages.
California legislators who opposed the legislation warned that such laws could place unborn children at grave risk by banning such investigations.
State Senator Melissa Melendez (R, Lake Elsinore), has been pressing Wicks since it was introduced in the state legislature. She called Wicks a “grotesque cruelty toward the unborn”
Melendez tweeted that Newsom signed AB 2223. If you try to abort your child but it’s still alive, you can kill it or let it die. No one can investigate the death of the woman/person who assisted her criminally liable. This is an act of grotesque cruelty toward the unborn.”
Susan Swift, Vice President of Legal Affairs for the Right to Life League, stated that California’s legislators have made abortion illegal in California a “horrific” matter.
The Right to Life League sent a June open letter to California legislators about the bill. It stated that it was poorly written and could de-regulate all aspects of the abortion industry.
The letter states that AB 2223’s broad language is intended to protect women against prosecution for abortion. “The bill could de-regulate abortion and overrides existing medical safeguards for women by creating an unaccountable class of cooperating individuals.
According to the organization, AB 2223 does more than protect pregnant women from being prosecuted.
Swift stated to The Epoch Times that “nobody is going to want the lawsuit of investigating [the deceased],” Swift said that the government would cover all data pertaining to all babies who survived abortions.
The California Globe reported that the California Family Council, a Biblically-based pro-life organization, had expressed opposition to the bill.
According to the group, lawmakers want to codify killing unborn children during all nine months of pregnancy and to make it illegal to kill newborns for days or weeks.
LifeNews.com tweeted an earlier video of hundreds of Californians showing up to voice concerns about the legislation during a hearing.
According to California, Globe Wicks maintained that the bill was not about infanticide and that women shouldn’t be prosecuted for pregnancy loss.
Newsom signed the bill shortly before the November midterm elections, where residents will vote for Proposition 1. This proposed amendment would prohibit the state from “denying or interfering with an individual’s reproductive freedom in the most intimate decisions of their body,” which includes their fundamental right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.
