A bill that would allow non-physician medical professionals to perform early term abortions is over its last major hurdle in the California legislature.
Democratic Senator Hannah Beth-Jackson said the bill provides access to important reproductive care to women in areas with few physicians.
“Almost half of our state’s counties, 52 percent, do not have an accessible abortion provider,” Beth-Jackson explained.
But Republican Senator Joel Anderson said the bill would create a class of substandard healthcare for women in medically underserved communities.
“I believe that rural women deserve the same level of health care as women that live in the cities,” Anderson said.
Under a recently published UC San Francisco pilot study, trained Nursing Assistants, Physician Assistants and Midwives performed thousands of abortions with a complication rate lower than two percent.
