Life Legal is suing California Attorney General Rob Bonta and several state agencies to block the “Abortion Accessibility Act” (SB 245). The law forces insurance companies to pay for abortions without any copays or deductibles. This unconstitutional law discriminates against women who choose to carry their babies to term and creates perverse financial incentives that subsidize abortionists.
We filed our lawsuit today on behalf of pro-life pregnancy care centers because the law favors abortion over childbirth, which is explicitly forbidden by the California Constitution according to long-established case law.
State Senator Lena Gonzalez introduced SB 245 in January 2021. The bill prevents insurance companies from imposing “a deductible, coinsurance, copayment, or any other cost-sharing requirement” on abortion or abortion-related services. Not surprisingly, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the law, which is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2023.
Ironically, Gonzalez insists that, “each person deserves the right to decide if, when, and how they grow their family regardless of income and without stigma and shame.” However, the law clearly provides financial advantages to women who kill their yet unborn family members and penalizes those who actually decide to grow their families.
Moreover, under SB 245 abortion is granted privileged status, as California does not prohibit copays or deductibles for any other surgery or drug regimen.
Life Legal’s lawsuit emphasizes the harmful effect SB 245 will have on poorer women. By requiring insurance companies to finance abortion without any conditions whatsoever – yet denying the same coverage to life-affirming options – the law exercises what can only be described as coercion on less than affluent mothers who do not want to abort.
Life Legal’s challenge to SB 245 is the first lawsuit against any of the radical new pro-abortion laws passed in California relating to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
“In California, the partisans of abortion are showing their true colors and openly privileging abortion over childbirth, especially for groups whose populations they want to reduce,” said Life Legal’s Chief Executive Officer Alexandra Snyder.
“SB 245 is a thinly veiled, Margaret Sanger-esque eugenic proposal that incentivizes abortion and enriches Planned Parenthood and other abortionists. Our lawsuit seeks to eliminate the law’s capricious discrimination against women who choose anything but death for their children.”
