Gavin Newsom Is Wrong on Abortion

‘T exas doesn’t own your body. You do,” a billboard image reads with an image of a woman who has her hands chained behind her back. It’s part of a billboard-ad campaign launched by California governor Gavin Newsom in Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas. Another of the ads has a photo of a young woman who looks sad and scared. The text reads: “Need an abortion? California is ready to help.” There’s a link to California’s abortion information website. There’s also a quote from the Bible: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these” (Mark 12:31). According to the governor of the Golden State, who is up for reelection this year, the Golden Rule commands women in unplanned pregnancies to travel to California to end the life of their developing babies.

The governors of some of these states are Republican governors who are also up for reelection this year. Elections often don’t bring out the best in people. But on an issue so contentious and so intimate, images of women in chains are not a help to anyone. In recent decades, proponents of abortion — which is a fair description of a politician claiming that the Bible has something to do with his desire to make California an abortion destination, to rival New York as the abortion capital of the country — have increasingly hidden behind euphemisms, including “choice” and “reproductive rights” and “health care” and “women,” to avoid the unpopular word “abortion.” That’s become a little harder since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Now we’re seeing the A-word a bit more. And that’s clarifying, because some of the most radical abortion advocates — some of whom are in public office — have rarely shown a commitment to choice beyond the one they deemed most convenient. Abortion is presented as a quick fix to an otherwise life-changing problem. But with the real obstacles that a single teenager or a woman in other trying circumstances might face when pregnant, a culture that promotes abortion as the most obvious solution is actually coercing women into abortions. Too many women feel as if they don’t have a choice.

States including Louisiana and Arizona are leaders in making sure women know what their options are. (Both have websites explaining alternatives in detail.) Studies show that mothers often have no idea, for example, what adoption — not to be confused with the foster-care system — involves today. Women often think that to choose adoption would be an expense to the birth mother beyond the heroic sacrifice of loving a child into life and then choosing a couple to raise that child because it is what’s best for the baby. Talk about loving your neighbor as yourself!

Those who describe themselves as pro-life are by no means off the hook now that Roe has ended. It was never enough to simply oppose Roe. Florida senator Marco Rubio and Idaho representative Ashley Hinson introduced the Providing for Life Act in each chamber this month. In contrast with Newsom’s come-and-get-your-abortion website, the legislation includes creating a life.gov federal page that would be a clearinghouse for pro-life resources across the country before, during, and after pregnancy:

These could include federal and state assistance programs, federally funded local health clinics, mentorship opportunities, material or legal support, childcare, adoption resources, and more. Each of these entities are life-affirming and do not have any connection to providing, promoting, or financially supporting abortions.

It would also “include access to Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal Mental Health hotline that would provide immediate mental health support for women and assist them with finding local resources on the clearinghouse.”

One of its many provisions includes reforms to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, to extend the postpartum benefit from six months to two years; the breastfeeding eligibility benefit period from one year to two; increasing voucher benefits for fruits and vegetables to adjust for inflation. It includes expansion of tax credits, the ability of new parents to use up to three months of their Social Security benefits to help with parental leave, informed consent for pregnant students on college campuses, funding for local community mentoring programs for low-income mothers, and other practical supports.

In the wake of Roe, we need less polarization when it comes to abortion. Perhaps with a few tweaks, and once we’re past November’s election season, Congress could consider something like Rubio and Hinchin’s proposal as a way to make sure women have the choice to parent their babies or choose adoption. Abortion never should have been a woman’s only option.

And yet companies and government officials often seem to prefer abortion for women — especially if they are low-income or black or Hispanic. Companies, of course, don’t want you to have your kid — they’ll have more of your time if you remain childless. Let’s not pretend it’s pro-woman for Amazon to say they’ll pay for your abortion expenses. Anything we can do to help a woman choose life is better than manipulating the Bible to add to the atmosphere of fear and coercion that already overwhelms. We’d all be better neighbors if we got out of our ideological silos and worked to help single mothers and families survive and thrive in all our states, whatever our abortion label.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.