If President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican Senate try to roll back reproductive health rights or implement a widely prophesied national abortion ban, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is prepared to challenge him.
Two years ago, Bonta, a Democrat who heads the state justice department, ordered his staff to draft legal analyzes against a potential national abortion ban after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down 50 years of abortion protections under Roe v. Wade. Bonta said they thought about the arguments, even deciding in which court they would file the lawsuit.
Bonta said his team had a strategy in place as of Election Day.
After the dobbs decision, Trump boasted that “he could kill” Roe v. Wade. He said he would veto any federal abortion ban after refusing to say whether he would veto one. And the Project 2025 Leadership Mandate, a roadmap for the next conservative president drawn up by many former Trump advisers, described overturning Roe as “just the beginning.” It also calls for ending the requirement that Obamacare plans cover emergency contraception; mailing medicated abortion pills; and federal funding of Planned Parenthood and other clinics that offer abortions.
By comparison, Californians have enshrined abortion and contraception rights in the state constitution. In 2022, the state also signed 15 bills into law and approved $200 million in new spending to expand abortion protections in the Golden State and make it easier for low-income and out-of-state patients to get care.
Bonta, who was appointed attorney general in 2021 by Gov. Gavin Newsom, has sued a national anti-abortion group and a chain of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers for marketing unproven and potentially harmful “abortion pill reversal” procedures. In September, she sued Providence St. Joseph Hospital, a Catholic hospital that had allegedly denied a patient an emergency abortion, instead discharging her by offering her a bucket and towels. Last week, Bonta reached a settlement with the city of Beverly Hills over her alleged blocking of an abortion clinic from opening.
It has joined other states in lawsuits over medication abortions, emergency abortions and interstate travel for care. For Bonta, the issue of abortion is personal. His wife, Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, shared in 2022 that she had an abortion when she was 21 years old. As her boyfriend, Bonta held her hand when she made the decision.
Bonta spoke with KFF Health News correspondent Molly Castle Work about her passion for protecting women’s reproductive health rights and how her upbringing influences her legal decisions. This interview, which took place on October 31, has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How do you think your education prepared you for this job?
TO: It starts with the inspiration of my parents. They learned that you can’t just hope and wait for the things you want; you have to fight. They joined the Farm Workers Union of America. My father worked in the main office with César Chávez, my mother with Dolores Huerta. They were fighting for the people who feed our state and our nation, but they were not treated well.
I remember when I was a child I went with my mother… to protests, rallies and demonstrations. I was at his side, with slogans on my throat and my fist raised, or banners in my hand, denouncing human rights abuses. There was a belief that ordinary people cannot accept the unacceptable, and if something is not right, we will fight and we can and do create the change they seek.
I want to be the person who comes in with my positional power, my authority, the reach and the strength of this office behind me and on my side working together to protect those people who are being mistreated and wronged.
Q: You have long been an advocate for reproductive rights. Why are you so passionate?
TO: Some things you just feel in your gut. And you have your own personal story. My wife has told the story and it is her story that must be told. She had an abortion, I went with her and held her hand. It was his choice, his right, his decision, his bodily autonomy and his self-determination. And every woman deserves it.
And I don’t like bullies. I don’t like people who attack others and try to take things from them. It is wrong and it is my role to protect those rights. And these are not imaginary rights (before dobbsThey existed for 50 years for all women in the United States of America.
We’re in a fight for freedom right now, certainly including reproductive freedom, and it’s something that I think the entire nation has some connection to, and it’s wrong for elected officials, presidential candidates, to make political decisions, to stand in the way on the way. of a decision that must be made between a woman, her doctor, her faith.
Q: Tell me more about your wife’s decision to share her own abortion story after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the ruling. dobbs decision. Why was it important for both of you to share that story?
TO: We talked about it, of course, but it was his decision. And it’s not something that’s easy to talk about, but I think it was important to talk about it, especially at that time.
It was painful to see people lose faith and trust in the Supreme Court, and it was important for people to know that their leaders are standing beside them, that they have experiences and passions and concerns like them, that they have worries and fears like them. .
And I think it was important for Mia to emphasize the impact of these decisions on women of color and vulnerable women, poor women. It was important for her to raise her voice and, through her pain, appropriate her power, show her strength, and communicate her own experience with others.
Q: You have joined and led multistate efforts to defend abortion in states like Idaho and Texas. Why is it up to California to push for access outside its borders?
TO: We fight wherever you are. We get involved in all kinds of different issues, supporting transgender and gender non-conforming youth, supporting common sense and constitutionally legal gun safety laws. And certainly, when it comes to reproductive health care, we do the same. There are strategic, intentional and deliberate attacks, by design, on certain courts outside of California. That is why it is very important for us to contribute our knowledge, our experience and our legal vision to these struggles.
Q: What happens if Trump wins the election? How does that change your work? And what kind of preparations are you making?
TO: We have been preparing since dobbs decision fell. Shortly after that, I asked my team to start writing the brief for a national abortion ban: Think about it, you know. Think about the arguments. Do we have a way to challenge it in court?
Let’s hope we never have to challenge it in court. There is no national ban on abortion, and there may never be, but we want to be prepared if there is. We want to have thought it through when we had time and been able to do an in-depth and nuanced review.
I think the people of our state and the people of our country want us to have been doing that.
Q: So, I’m sure you know I have to ask: Are you considering running for governor?
TO: There will be a time to make that decision after the election. That time is not now. I feel honored and grateful to have received a lot of encouragement from people. That inspires me about the work my team is doing.
This article was produced by KFF Health Newswho publishes California Healthlinean editorially independent service California Health Care Foundation.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF, an independent source of research, polling and health policy journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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