“Don’t let them take Tennessee women hostage,” the narrator says, urging viewers to take action and directing them to a website. The site currently includes a petition against abortion travel bans and, once state-by-state campaigns are launched, will include ways for people to take action against the legislation.
Several red state officials are moving quickly to impose fines and legal penalties for transporting people seeking abortions across state lines. Newsom, who previously directed abortion-related television ads and billboards and pushed for California to be a legal “sanctuary” for abortions, said conditions in conservative states are “far more pernicious than they appear.”
“These guys are not just restricting the rights and self-determination of having a child for a young woman,” Newsom, a Democrat and top Biden campaign surrogate, said on the Sunday show. “But they are also determining their destiny when it comes to their future in life by saying they can’t even travel.”
He pointed to Tennessee, as well as Oklahoma and Mississippi, and said Alabama’s attorney general wants to criminalize travel not only by children, but also by adults seeking reproductive care. The latter refers to a court filing that described out-of-state abortion travel as “criminal conspiracy.”
“That’s how serious this moment is,” Newsom added. “And I would say we have to be even more aggressive. And that is what this ad represents.”
Protecting abortion access is a central pillar in Democrats’ efforts to retain the White House and win down-ballot elections this fall. Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are considered children under state law. While former President Donald Trump disagreed with that ruling, he expressed his support for banning abortion at 16 weeks.
Newsom’s latest move comes from his Democracy Campaign, a committee he created with millions of dollars in donations left over from a failed recall of him in 2021. It also focuses on gun control. Running ads outside California has become a familiar move for the governor, who has bolstered his national profile through high-profile fights with governors. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Newsom rented billboards in several Republican-led states. The ambitious governor made another unorthodox move before last fall’s midterm elections, eschewing ads for his own easy re-election effort and instead pouring millions of dollars into TV ads for 2022’s Proposition 1, a measure that enshrined the right to abortion and contraceptives in the California region. Constitution.
Last year, Newsom led a network of Democratic governors in 20 states, called the Alliance for Reproductive Freedom, to strengthen abortion access in the wake of the court’s Dobbs decision.
However, California has struggled to increase abortion access within its own borders.
Newsom’s postRoe The foray into abortion began with criticism of his own party for not being aggressive enough in the face of what he calls a “rights regression” led by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. He said in the interview that aired Sunday that the high court set the tone for the debate and that the current situation “is not just a war on travel.”
“It’s not just a war on reproductive health care,” Newsom said. “It is also a war on women in a broader sense, including, as we know, contraceptives.”
While he initially criticized his own party, drawing the ire of the White House, Newsom said its leaders are now responding more forcefully. He credited President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has made prioritizing abortion access a centerpiece of his portfolio, leading that fight.
“We have drawn the lines of this debate,” Newsom said. “We have been on the offensive, not on the defensive. “The Republican Party is on the defensive on this issue.”