Officials implore action amid challenges to abortion rights in San Mateo County

Johnson was one of three panelists participating in a discussion held Wednesday evening by San Carlos Councilmember Laura Parmer-Lohan about the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade. Also joining the panel was Wynne Dubovoy, major gifts officer with Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, and Aaron Nayfack, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician with Sutter Health and Sequoia Healthcare District trustee.

Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion care, was overturned in June after a majority of Supreme Court justices sided with the state of Mississippi and its law banning abortions after 15 weeks. But the final decision on the case, titled Dobbs v. Jackson, went beyond what was being proposed by the state and instead placed the authority to regulate abortion care back with the states.

About two dozen states had so-called trigger laws on the books that either banned or greatly limited abortion care immediately after Roe was overturned and legal battles have developed across the nation. Many will have to turn to neighboring states to receive the care they need.

“This is not something I thought I would ever see in my lifetime and I hope I will see the reversal of this in my lifetime,” Dubovoy said.

Bracing for strain

The immediate fallout of the Dobbs v. Jackson has not yet been felt in San Mateo County and broader California, Nayfack said. Instead of rolling back legal protections for reproductive care, state officials have vowed to codify them.

And county supervisors have made similar commitments by affirming the county’s “unwavering support for women’s reproductive freedom and health care privacy” and adopting a $1 million Women’s Reproductive Freedom and Healthcare Privacy Action Plan.

Johnson said the swift response to implement protections has been unprecedented but those protections aren’t guaranteed. He noted that top Republicans have shared support for a national ban on abortions and could be instituted by as early as 2024. If done, Johnson said the legislation could call into question state protections.

And state laws protecting medical practitioners who provide abortion care to patients from states where abortion is illegal, similar to one being pursued by California legislators, will also likely face legal challenges, Johnson said.

“There is no safe harbor, this is not over,” Johnson said. “The situation right now is very fluid and it’s very dangerous in that some of us who are listening — state officials, local officials, medical officials — are really going to eventually face the question of do we defy federal law, do we risk criminal and civil liability to protect women’s rights?”

From a medical perspective, Nayfack said many in the field feel protected locally at the moment but shared Johnson’s concerns for the future. A more immediate concern, Nayfack said, is for the safety of people who are pregnant or can become pregnant who may travel and end up in a state where abortion care may be limited or banned, potentially putting the pregnant person’s life in danger.

Nayfack shared similar concerns for those who may consider attending college in an anti-abortion state. Ultimately, he argued the Dobbs decision will have grave impacts on already underserved communities, particularly women of color, and will lead to higher child and child birth mortality rates.

“We have a Supreme Court that is a clear and present danger to all of us at this point,” Nayfack said. “It’s not good on a global scale and a national scale. Locally we’re OK and we got some time but when we think about our country and our fellow citizens elsewhere, it’s definitely not a good thing.”

An influx of patients from out of state could also overwhelm California’s medical infrastructure and displace locals also seeking out treatment, Nayfack and Dubovoy agreed.

Out-of-state patients have already begun visiting Mar Monte’s clinics, Dubovoy said, and the agency is gearing up for somewhere between 200 and 500 new out-of-state patients to visit each clinic per week.

Calling for support

In addition to providing the highest training possible for doctors, nurses and physicians assistants to perform abortion care, much of the county funds will go to supporting services provided by Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the health care giant’s largest affiliate nationwide providing medical care to more than 220,000 patients from the Bay Area to Northern Nevada.

Dubovoy said the assistance is appreciated and much more will be needed. The agency cannot financially support patients from out of state who come to California for care without risking losing more funding, Dubovoy said, and state officials have argued similar limitations, Johnson said.

Instead, Johnson said Silicon Valley’s tech industry could play a vital role in supporting the infrastructure needed to connect those looking for reproductive care with the necessary resources and Dubovoy called for supporting nonprofits providing such resources that are not reliant on federal or state dollars.

Elections up and down the ballot will also have key implications on the future of reproductive protections, all members on the panel agreed. Dubovoy encouraged the public to stay politically engaged with all races from nonpartisan campaigns for school board seats and to highly covered Senate seat pursuits, an argument Parmer-Lohan echoed.

“Ultimately, there’s a pipeline to these higher seats in our government and they all start at the local level,” Parmer-Lohan said. “It’s important that each of us finds our voice and uses it and shares it. We all play a part and to not, we basically give our vote away and we give our voice to someone else who is going to make a decisions on our behalf that we may not like.”

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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