California is on track to become the first state to require all public universities to offer medication abortion at student health centers, after the state Assembly approved a bill Wednesday that did just that.


That study also found that UC and CSU students — over half of which qualify as low-income — likely struggle to pay for abortions and to access off-campus care, since few have cars. (Most UC and USC campuses are at least 30 minutes away from an abortion provider via public transportation.)

“Public university student health centers make abortion by medication techniques as accessible and cost-effective for students as possible,” the proposed legislation reads, “and thus public university student health centers should treat abortion by medication techniques as a basic health service.”

Several groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics’ California chapter, have also endorsed the bill.

“Our hope is that this will be a model for other states to pick up,” Surina Khan, CEO of the Women’s Foundation of California, told the Huffington Post in February, shortly after the California state Senate pass an earlier version of the bill. The Women’s Foundation of California is one of several private donors that have offered to provide the millions of dollars need to get the measure off the ground.

“If there are health centers in universities that will need ultrasound machines, or training about how to administer medication abortion, that will all be provided for through the funder consortium’s resources,” Khan explained. Under the bill, schools must be able to offer abortions by 2022.


In a statement, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins promised that the anti-abortion group would “work tirelessly to prevent this misguided effort from going to other states.”

“Schools should be focused on educating the next generation, not ensuring that it’s easy to end the lives of future generations,” Hawkins went on.

The measure will now return to the Senate, which must approve bill’s latest iteration, before heading to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.