California plans to become a sanctuary not just for those seeking abortions, but for those providing them, as well. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2022-2023 state budget, released Jan. 10, included a program incentivizing medical students to become practicing abortionists. 

The $20 million allocated to the program will offer interested students scholarship money or will pay off current abortionists’ student loans. 

Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California’s president and CEO, Jodi Hicks, provided a statement the same day, affirming Newsom’s proposal. 

“This budget proposal provides flexibility and opportunity for increasing access to abortion,” the statement read. “We look forward to continuing our work with Governor Newsom and the legislative leaders throughout the budget process to develop the details that will ultimately increase access to and affordability of abortion care.” 

The statement included several indications of California’s continued interest in maintaining a reputation for “reproductive freedom.” 

Live Action blogger Cassy Fiano-Chesser commented that while the budget proposal will provide funding for “abortion-vulnerable women” traveling to California for abortions, it will not allocate financial aid to women looking to avoid abortion. 

“The scholarship and student loan repayment program would incentivize future doctors to violate the Hippocratic Oath by killing their most vulnerable patients,” Fiano-Chesser wrote, “a particularly attractive prospect for medical students overwhelmed by medical school bills.”

In Dec. 2021, Newsom acknowledged California’s future as an abortion haven.

“We’ll be a sanctuary,” Newsom said, according to the A.P., in reference to patients traveling to California from other states in order to receive abortions. “We are looking for ways to support that inevitability and looking at ways to expand our protections.

The Associated Press also reported that the California Future of Abortion Council released a list of 45 recommendations for the state to consider in the case of Roe v. Wade being overturned. The first recommendation reads, “The State Must Increase Investment in Abortion Funds, Direct Practical Support, and Infrastructure to Support Patients Seeking Abortion Care.”

In response, Kathleen Buckley Domingo, the executive director of California Catholic Conference (CCC), the policy voice of California’s bishops, described the report as “disappointing and deceptive.”

The report, according to Domingo, suggests abortion as the correct response to all questions involving the health of women and families, effectively ignoring real health-related challenges women, particularly women of color, face. 

“Nowhere in the 15-page report is any discussion of alternatives to abortion. There is not a single question or comment about why women seek an abortion or what could be done to eliminate the underlying challenges to allow women to continue their pregnancies,” she said in CCC’s response. “There is no pause in the frantic nature of the report to allow for a moment of grace, a moment of hope.”

She addressed that housing and food insecurity, intimate partner violence, fear of losing a job, lack of childcare, feeling alone and lacking resources are the main reasons motivating women to choose abortion. 

“In a state as diverse as California, with a budget surplus of $31 billion, why aren’t we exploring options that genuinely empower women,” she said, “instead of encouraging the ‘quick fix’ of abortion, which does nothing to solve underlying concerns?”