San Fran is losing population. That does not stop the government from financing the killing of babies,
“After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections in 2022, Supervisor Hillary Ronen raced to secure a $400,000 late addition to The City budget to support access to reproductive health care in San Francisco and California.
But The City faced a two-year deficit of about $780 million as it entered a new round of budget negotiations in 2023, and the funding for abortion access was not included this time around.
The omission of new abortion funding highlights the predicament in which predominantly pro-choice cities and states like San Francisco and California find themselves.
They are fretting that they do not have enough tax dollars to kill. What a predicament! LOL
How SF abortion access funding was spent, one year later
By Adam Shanks SF Examiner, 7/3/23 https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/politics/how-sf-abortion-access-funding-was-spent-one-year-later/article_39e34a86-1783-11ee-b740-177bda237afa.html
Funding secured in last year’s City budget to help women access abortion in San Francisco will not be repeated in 2023, but advocates say the money bolstered work that will continue beyond this year.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections in 2022, Supervisor Hillary Ronen raced to secure a $400,000 late addition to The City budget to support access to reproductive health care in San Francisco and California.
But The City faced a two-year deficit of about $780 million as it entered a new round of budget negotiations in 2023, and the funding for abortion access was not included this time around.Nview ahead of 2023 Women’s World Cup
tina team preview ahead of 2023 Women’s World Cup – Source: SNTV
The omission of new abortion funding highlights the predicament in which predominantly pro-choice cities and states like San Francisco and California find themselves.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson case last year, well-intentioned leaders raced to fund efforts that would help Californians and those who live in states now unburdened by the legal constraints of Roe, quickly limiting abortion access.
But governments like San Francisco and California are trying to balance competing interests as the economy slumps. The City, for example, had heated debates this year about early child care and homelessness funds.
Still, the campaign to ensure access to reproductive health care in San Francisco will carry on, its stewards say.
“Unfortunately, we’ve already started to feel the strains of a very challenging city budget to continue to fund this work but are committed to being creative and supporting [the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women] in their ongoing work for abortion access for all,” Ronen’s office said in a statement to The Examiner.
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision ended 50 years of judicial precedent and opened the door for states to enforce strict anti-abortion laws.
In a report released this year, the nonprofit Human Rights Watch declared the post-Dobbs landscape an “unprecedented human rights crisis” for people who can become pregnant.
When the content of the Dobbs decision leaked in the months before it was formally released, Ronen tasked The City’s Budget and Legislative Analyst with estimating the cost of paying for 1,000 out-of-state residents to travel to San Francisco to obtain an abortion.
It found that the entire pilot program would cost $3.8 to $4.5 million when including expenses like childcare and lodging.
E
The City didn’t embark on such a program, but its Department on the Status of Women awarded a $250,000 grant to Access Reproductive Justice, a statewide abortion fund that helps women obtain reproductive health care.
“We will literally take hotel reservations on their behalf, send confirmation details, and will be available via phone,” explained Jessica Pinckney Gil, executive director of Access Reproductive Justice.
The organization has used San Francisco’s grant money to increase the number of staffers working its health line — which operates five days a week and helps coordinate services with and for people seeking care — from two to four.
Founded 30 years ago, Access Reproductive Justice has historically been primarily funded by individual donors but saw government interest spike after Texas adopted a 2021 law banning abortion about six weeks into pregnancy.
The support by individuals and governments to address an “urgent crisis” is an “important first step, but it’s not enough; we need consistent investment and consistent attention to the issue,” Pinckney Gil said.
Accessing abortion was already challenging for many Californians before the Dobbs decision: half of California counties don’t have a single abortion provider.
The decision immediately increased the demand reproductive health care providers in California could anticipate from out-of-state people and Californians.
Pre-Dobbs, about 20% of callers to Access Reproductive Justice were from outside California, Pinckney Gil said. Now, it’s closer to 35 or 40%.
Using the $400,000 Ronen secured in The City’s budget, the San Francisco Bay Area Abortion Rights Coalition, commonly referred to as BAARC, consists of leaders across the Bay Area.
“These one-time funds have supported the development of the coordination table as well as a regional abortion care service delivery assessment with BAARC initiative stakeholders, including measuring and projecting future impacts from the influx of patients who are forced to travel out of state, including to the San Francisco Bay Area, to receive reproductive healthcare services,” Alex Boskovich, project manager for strategic initiatives for The City’s Department on the Status of Women, wrote in an email.
The current political climate has highlighted the gaps in access to abortion care in California for state residents and those outside its borders, Pinckney Gil said, and it’s not too late to improve it.
“We were founded in 1993 because there was a need. People were walking into clinics and didn’t have a ride home after their procedure or leaving the clinic without having their abortion because they couldn’t pay for it,” Pinckney Gil said. “As long as we exist, access is not complete.”
