As states across the country continue to respond to last summer’s Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, California has maintained some of the strongest abortion protections in the nation.
But for some Californians, particularly in rural areas, accessing services remains difficult, and new threats to the legality of abortion pills could create even more barriers.
In LA, a group of abortion doulas from the Los Angeles Abortion Support Collective has been organizing to protect access to the health procedure for people in California and beyond.
These doulas provide comfort, support, and advocacy for abortion patients, says SarahMichal Hamid, a member of the collective. That includes in-person and digital care, which can mean attending a clinic procedure, helping with pain management, and providing a safe space for someone to talk to and hold their hand.
Hamid says they work with a diverse clientele, including those from LA County, other parts of California, and other states.
And now that there’s a potential ban on mifepristone, an oral drug that can end an early-stage pregnancy, Hamid says the organization's services could be more critical.
“Eliminating the availability of mifepristone would directly impact people's access in a manner that we don't really know the full scope yet, because it's so unprecedented to implement such a really bad regulatory ban on a medication that's been approved for 20-plus years. I mean, mifepristone has been available in the United States longer than I've been alive,” Hamid explains.
Hamid says out of the 58 counties in California, about 40% don’t have access to an operational abortion clinic. That’s due in part to, as she explains it, rural clinics signing contracts with religious organizations that don’t allow abortion care to be taught to patients or provided.
“Though our state has really strong legal protections, we have a lot of work to undo and making sure that … all people, not just people that live in counties where there's a clinic, can access care.”
She adds, “We know that ultimately, abortion is essential health care. It is our right to exercise bodily autonomy, and we're not going to stop exercising that right because politicians think they can legislate our bodies.”