Senate Bill 623, by Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, was supported by Planned Parenthood and opposed by pro-life groups. Introduced by Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego), it extended a program run by the University of California, San Francisco, in which nurse practitioners, midwives and physicians assistants are trained to perform abortions.
The last days of the California legislative session saw abortion backers fight to expand abortion, while ignoring the severe economic crisis California continues to face. Lawmakers took an unrelated book and inserted language in it from a failed measure to allow nurses to do abortions.
Kehoe claimed that the bill was necessary to fill gaps in the availability of abortion caused by the shortage of doctors in parts of the state. The bill went through three attempts before passage. Ms. Kehoe “gutted and amended” the bill after its introduction, which raised some protest from other members of the Senate. This spring, a Senate committee rejected an attempt to pass a broader bill allowing non-physicians to perform abortions. In the end, a narrower version of the bill was passed. Rather than opening abortion to non-physicians generally, the bill focuses on extending a U.C. San Francisco program training physicians assistants and others to perform first trimester abortions.
The new measure, AB 154, seeks to expand that effort.
ACTION: Contact the committee members listed below and ask them to vote “NO” on AB 154.
Assembly Committee on Business, Professions and Consumer Protection
Richard Gordon (Chair).....916-319-2024.....916-319-2124 fax
Brian Jones (Vice-Chair).....916-319-2071.....916-319-2171 fax
Raul Bocanegra.....916-319-2039.....916-319-2139 fax
Nora Campos.....916-319-2027.....916-319-2127 fax
Roger Dickinson.....916-319-2007.....916-319-2107 fax
Susan Eggma.....916-319-2013.....916-319-2113 fax
Curt Hagman.....916-319-2055.....916-319-2155 fax
Chris Holden.....916-319-2041.....916-319-2141 fax
Brian Maienschein.....916-319-2077.....916-319-2177 fax
Kevin Mullin.....916-319-2022.....916-319-2122 fax
Nancy Skinner.....916-319-2015.....916-319-2115 fax
Phillip Ting.....916-319-2019.....916-319-2119 fax
Scott Wilk.....916-319-2038.....916-319-2138 fax
