SF mayor’s measure would add abortion protections

San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Tuesday announced a November ballot measure that would bar the use of city funding to cooperate with out-of-state prosecutions of abortions performed in The City, as well as create a fund supporting patients seeking reproductive health care in San Francisco.

During a press conference at the San Francisco Planned Parenthood, Breed said the San Francisco Reproductive Freedom Act would also limit public funding to reproductive health-care facilities that neither provide nor refer to comprehensive reproductive health services. The Planning Code would also be amended to note that reproductive health clinics are permitted wherever non-residential uses are allowed.

Breed said the measure’s changes amounted to “A lot of technical city bureaucracy. But ultimately, it accomplishes the goal that's most important to us and why so many of us are here standing today.”

“We have to demonstrate with the voters of San Francisco what our values are, and how we will continue as a city to fight against any injustice,” Breed said. “That reproductive health and freedom will continue to be protected in The City in whatever ways possible.”

Breed announced the measure’s introduction in advance of the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization ruling, which overturned the constitutional protections for abortions enshrined in Roe v. Wade and affirmed in later high court decisions.

Half of the states have at least partially banned the procedure, with 14 outright prohibiting it, five others banning it between 6 and 12 weeks into pregnancy, and six more barring abortions between 15 and 22 weeks, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. A federal judge blocked Idaho law barring minors from traveling across state lines to receive an abortion without parental consent as she considers a lawsuit against it.

California voters enshrined the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution in 2022, and the mayor’s office said Tuesday that California has seen an increase in the procedure since the Dobbs decision. There were almost 2,000 more abortions in May 2023 (15,550) than the same month in 2022 (13.900). The Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision in June 2022.

The City’s six public-health facilities perform more than 1,200 abortions annually, according to the mayor’s office. Breed said San Francisco remains a “sanctuary for women,” and officials added Tuesday that the new measure aims to codify that status into official policy.

“With a high-stakes presidential election this fall, this ballot initiative is an example of San Francisco proactively contingency planning,” Kimberly Ellis, the director of the Department on the Status of Women in San Francisco, said. “We are battening down the hatches so as not to get caught flat-footed, because if there's one thing we have learned from the pandemic, and from the fall of Roe v. Wade, it is that this is not a drill.”

Breed called out crisis pregnancy centers in The City, such as Alpha Pregnancy Center at 5070 Mission St., and Bella Primary Care at 2000 Van Ness Ave. as being misleading about the services they provide. The measure would require these centers to post signage stating that they don’t provide comprehensive reproductive health care and directing patients to places where they could get it.

“It's very unfortunate when you’re going to understand what all your options are, you're being told that you will go to hell if you get an abortion,” she said. Faith groups often fund these centers, which then typically discourage patients from seeking abortions. CalMatters found last year that almost 80% of California counties had at least one such center, while fewer than two-thirds of them had an abortion clinic . “We don't need people telling someone that at a very vulnerable moment.”