ASSEMBLYMEMBER PATTY BERG
1ST ASSEMBLY DISTRICT
For Immediate Release:
July 6, 2003
Contact: Janice Rocco
(916) 319-2035

Chair Of Women's Caucus Blasts Republican Budget Proposal That Attempts To Deny Women Constitutionally Protected Rights



Sacramento - This evening, Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), Chair of the Legislative Women's Caucus blasted the Republican budget proposal as an attack on women's rights in a speech on the Assembly Floor. The Republican proposal includes the following spending cuts:

  • Elimination of all teen-pregnancy prevention programs and state funded reproductive health care services including contraception and HIV testing.
  • Elimination of Medi-cal funding for abortion
  • Elimination of the Battered Women’s Shelter Program
  • Elimination of the California Commission on the Status of Women
  • Elimination of the Department of Fair Employment and Housing

    "The Republican budget makes cuts to critical programs that result in financial costs and societal costs that we simply will not bear. This proposal is an assault on women's constitutional rights," explained Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson.

    If the Republican plan were adopted:
    Young women and poor women would be denied access to family planning services. This would raise the teenage birth rate, which is currently at its lowest level in four decades.

    Access to condoms and HIV Testing would be denied leading to an increase in the spread of HIV/AIDS.

    Cutting the Family PACT family planning program would cost the state millions of dollars in federal funds. For every dollar in cuts, California would lose $9 in federal funds, meaning a loss of $330 million in federal funds each year. For every dollar the state spends on family planning, we save $4.48 in future health care costs through the prevention of unplanned pregnancies.

    If Medi-cal funding for abortions were eliminated, California would have more children reliant on welfare benefits for survival and women would seek costly health care in emergency rooms for botched abortions.

    If the Republican proposal were adopted to eliminate the Battered Women’s Shelter Program, which serves more than 100,000 women and children annually, more than 98 programs would lose funding for:

  • 24 hour crisis hotlines
  • emergency food, clothing and SHELTER for victims of domestic violence
  • counseling
  • emergency room services
  • legal assistance with Temporary Restraining Orders

    What is especially shocking about some of the Republican proposals is that they are unconstitutional attacks on women’s rights.

    The California Supreme Court ruled (in Committee to Defend Reproductive Rights v. Myers – 1981) that budget restrictions on Medi-cal abortion funding are unconstitutional (violating privacy and equal protection provisions in the state constitution). The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in Eisenstadt v. Baird – 1972) that denying individuals their right to contraceptives conflicts "with fundamental human rights.”

    "The right wing agenda of a few is being disguised as a budget solution. By eliminating funding for family planning programs and abortion services, the Republican proposal would increase health cares costs, reduce our eligibility for federal funding, and deny women their constitutionally protected rights. The women of California deserve much better," explained Assemblymember Jackson.

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