California could soon house nearly 30% of the country's abortion clinics if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, according to a new report.
If the 26 states that are set to pass near-total or total bans on abortions close all their abortion clinics, California would jump from having 21% of all clinics in the country to roughly 29%, despite being home to just 12% of the U.S. populaiton, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The total number of abortion clinics in the United States would also fall. If those 26 states shut down their abortion clinics, then the total number of clinics in the U.S. would drop by 26%, from 790 clinics to 588, based on data from the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program at the University of California, San Francisco.
California has sought to become a sanctuary for women seeking abortions ahead of the expected Supreme Court ruling, building new facilities closer to airports and high-trafficked transit areas. Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top state lawmakers have introduced an amendment that would "enshrine the right to choose" into the California Constitution if passed by voters.
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"We can’t trust SCOTUS to protect the right to abortion, so we’ll do it ourselves. Women will remain protected here," Newsom tweeted on Tuesday.
The state could also see an almost 3,000% increase in the number of women between 15 and 49 whose nearest abortion provider would be in California, many of whom would come from Arizona, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
A nearly $20 million budget has been proposed by the California Legislative Women's Caucus to help pay for women from states with stricter abortion regulations to come to California for the procedure. Newsom has yet to announce whether it will be part of his budget.
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Though the Supreme Court has yet to issue its final ruling, the Monday leak of an initial draft majority opinion by Politico showed the court intends to strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.