The UCLA student government recently hosted a phone-banking session for over 20 students to urge legislators to vote for a bill requiring public colleges in the state to provide free abortions on campus.
The session, titled, “Phone Banking Friday – Week 3: Reproductive Justice,” was hosted by the student government’s Office of the External Vice President. The bill they support, SB320, states:
More than 400,000 students classified as female are educated at California’s public university campuses, and it is central to the mission of California’s public university student health centers to minimize the negative impact of health concerns on students’ studies and to facilitate retention and graduation. … The state has an interest in ensuring that every pregnant person in California who wants to have an abortion can obtain access to that care as easily and as early in pregnancy as possible. When pregnant young people decide that abortion is the best option for them, having early, accessible care can help them stay on track to achieve their educational and other aspirational life plans. … Students seeking early pregnancy termination, especially those enrolled at institutions outside of major urban centers, face prohibitively expensive travel, often without reliable means of transportation, to a clinic that may require hours of travel from their campus, out of their city, county, or even geographic region. These financial and time burdens negatively impact academic performance and mental health.
On and after January 1, 2022, each public university student health center shall offer abortion by medication techniques. … The Treasurer shall utilize fund moneys to do all of the following: (A) Provide grants to public university student health centers to pay for the cost, both direct and indirect, of implementing abortion by medication techniques. … The Treasurer may additionally provide grants to student health centers at other public and private postsecondary educational institutions to pay for direct costs associated with implementing abortion by medication techniques.
As Toni Airaksinen reports in an in-depth piece at Campus Reform:
While Democratic State Senator Connie Leyva introduced the bill, The Daily Californian reports that UC-Berkeley student Adiba Khan spearheaded the effort. In Spring 2016, Khan began lobbying school administrators to provide abortion on-campus, but after her campaign failed, Khan switched tactics, instead working with Leyva to co-author SB 320.
Campus Reform spoke with student Chloe Pan, UCLA’s Student Body External Vice President, who said her office “serves as the official advocacy arm of our undergraduate student government at UCLA.” She asserted, “After SB 320 passed the Senate Education Committee, staffers in our office wanted to demonstrate our continued support for the legislation, which spurred the decision to phone bank in support of it. … My personal opinion is that all students deserve access to affordable and safe ways of having an abortion. If a student is less than ten-weeks pregnant and needs to terminate their pregnancy, they shouldn’t have to go off-campus.”
Arik Schneider, the vice president of UCLA’s Young Americans for Freedom, slammed the pro-abortion enthusiasts, saying:
Rather than ‘help all Bruins,’ abortion on campus would discourage students from taking advantage of outside resources, as it is unlikely UCLA would give pro-life advice to struggling students. Rather, UCLA would continue to follow in the footsteps of other abortion providers — pushing vulnerable students to get an abortion without providing them the resources for other alternatives.” He suggested campus health clinics be required to give pregnant students pro-life counseling, concluding, “A pregnancy during college might come as a surprise and a shock, but it should not mean the end of a precious new life.”