California governor launches ads to fight abortion travel bans

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday announced an advertising campaign to fight 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 effort will launch Monday, starting with a TV spot about a measure under consideration in Tennessee. The so-called “abortion trafficking” bill sponsored by state GOP lawmakers would make it a crime for an adult to recruit, carry or transport a minor to obtain an abortion without parental consent.

Newsom told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that similar restrictions modeled on a law that has already passed in Idaho are also being proposed in Oklahoma and Mississippi.

“The conditions are much more pernicious than they appear,” Newsom said. “These guys are not only restricting the rights, the self-determination to make a child for a young woman. But they are also determining their fate in terms of their future in life by saying that they can’t even travel.

People who support Tennessee’s measure say it could criminalize not only driving a minor to have an abortion, but also providing information about nearby abortion services or passing on which states have broader abortion laws.

Representative of the Republican State. Jason Zachary, who is co-sponsoring the proposal, called it “simply a parental rights bill.”

Since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, anti-abortion advocates have pushed states to ban abortions and find ways to block pregnant women and girls from crossing state lines to get the procedure.

Idaho has already enacted a so-called “abortion trafficking” law. The first measure of its kind made it illegal to obtain abortion pills for a minor or help him leave the state for an abortion without the knowledge and consent of the parents.

Newsom, a Democrat widely seen as a future presidential candidate, said his RightToTravel.org effort will be paid for by a national political action committee he launched last spring with $10 million from his campaign funds state The effort, called “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 relied on abortion rights as a major motivator for voters in the presidential election. election and struggle for control of Congress.

They believe that supporting abortion access can be a winning issue as the debate expands to include growing concerns about abortion care, access to medication, access to emergency care and in vitro fertilization treatments. A decision this week by the Alabama Supreme Court jeopardizes future access to IVF.