SACRAMENTO, California — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday announced an ad campaign to combat proposals in several Republican-controlled states to ban out-of-state travel for abortions and other reproductive care.
The multistate ad campaign and an online petition will launch Monday, starting with a television commercial about a measure being considered in Tennessee. The so-called “abortion trafficking” bill sponsored by Republican state lawmakers would make it a felony for an adult to recruit, harbor or transport a minor for an abortion without the consent of her parents.
Newsom told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that similar restrictions are also being proposed in Oklahoma and Mississippi, inspired by a law already passed in Idaho.
“The conditions are much more pernicious than they appear,” Newsom said. “These guys are not only restricting the rights and self-determination of having a child for a young woman. But they are also determining her fate in relation to her future in life by saying they can’t even travel.”
Supporters of the Tennessee measure say it could criminalize not only taking a minor for an abortion, but also providing information about nearby abortion services or broadcasting which states have looser abortion laws.
Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary, who is co-sponsoring the proposal, has called it “just a parental rights bill.”
Since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion advocates have pressured states to ban abortion and find ways to prevent pregnant women and girls from crossing state lines to obtain the procedure.
Idaho has already enacted a so-called “abortion trafficking” law. The measure, the first of its kind, made it illegal to obtain abortion pills for a minor or help her leave the state for an abortion without the parents’ knowledge and consent.
Newsom, a Democrat widely seen as a future presidential candidate, said his RightToTravel.org effort will be funded by a national political action committee he launched last spring with $10 million of his state campaign funds. The effort, called the “Campaign for Democracy,” is designed to boost Joe Biden and other Democrats and the conservative Republican agenda, he said.
Democrats and left-wing interest groups have staked their claim on abortion rights as a major motivator for voters in the upcoming presidential election and the fight for control of Congress.
They believe supporting abortion access can be a winning issue as the debate expands to include growing concerns about miscarriage care, access to medication, access to emergency care and infertility treatments. vitro. A ruling this week by the Alabama Supreme Court put future access to IVF in jeopardy.