SACRAMENTO — With access to abortion at stake across America, California is preparing to become the nation's abortion provider.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders have asked a group of reproductive health experts to propose policies to bolster the state's abortion infrastructure and ready it for more patients. Lawmakers plan to begin debating the ideas when they reconvene in January.
Abortion clinics are already girding themselves for a surge in demand.
Janet Jacobson, medical director of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, said three or four out-of-state patients visit her clinics each day — about double the number that sought treatment before a near-total ban on abortion took effect in Texas in September.
While the nine clinics can absorb that slow trickle, they expect up to 50 out-of-state patients a week if the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority guts abortion rights nationally, Jacobson said. She bases her estimate on new data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion and reproductive health rights.
She is adding staff members and appointment capacity, hoping to accommodate everyone.
"We have to make sure we can still continue to care for all of our California patients," Jacobson said. "We don't want them getting squeezed out" of appointments.
