Cal Matters-

Jessica Rosales recalls plunging into a downward spiral after discovering that her birth control had failed and she was pregnant. A financially unstable third-year student at UC Riverside, she immediately sought an abortion —something the campus student health clinic did not provide.

Instead she was referred to private medical facilities off campus. One wouldn’t accept her insurance; the other didn’t provide abortions. Her grades slipped, she said, and she frequently slept the days away to escape her circumstances. Eventually she traveled six miles to a Planned Parenthood clinic that performed the procedure. Ten weeks had passed.

“My situation could have been avoided if the student health center was there and provided medication abortion for students on campus,” Rosales said.

A bill advancing in the Legislature would make California the first in the nation to require that abortion pills be available at on-campus health centers.

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