SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California voters will decide in November whether the state Constitution should explicitly protect a person’s right to an abortion and birth control.
On Monday, the Democratic-controlled Legislature gave final approval to a measure that would put the issue before the state’s voters, in the latest countermeasure aimed at the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
Senate Constitutional Amendment 10 by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, would, if approved by voters, further codify the state’s already progressive reproductive rights, which grant anyone of reproductive age “the fundamental right to choose to bear a child or to choose and to obtain an abortion.” Currently, those rights in California are held up by case law and statutory laws, but Atkins said hostile attacks on abortion access convinced her those aren’t enough.
