California Moves to Prevent More Gosnells — MSNBC
For years, lawmakers from the U.S. Senate to states across the country have cited the abuses at Kermit Gosnell’s Pennsylvania clinic to restrict access to abortion. Today, California Governor Jerry Brown didn’t mention Gosnell’s name, but by signing the Early Access to Abortion Bill into law, he did more than any of those legislators to prevent another Gosnell.
The Early Access to Abortion Bill will enable trained nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants to perform first-trimester abortions by vacuum aspiration. It’s the logic of cause and effect: If you make it easier to access an abortion, earlier, and from a legitimate provider, there will be fewer desperate customers turning to unsafe providers.
Nearly one third of women will have an abortion before the age of 45, but the number of providers is at best stagnant and in many places diminishing. In California, the country’s most populous state, almost half of women live in a county without an abortion provider. Nationally, the number of counties without an abortion provider is 87%-where a third of American women live.