Introduced by Senator Atkins (Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Wood)
This bill authorizes nurse practitioners (NPs) who are qualified to independently practice to provide abortion services by aspiration techniques in the first trimester without having to work under existing prescribed standardized procedures.
POSTED: June 21, 2022
STATUS: Assembly Business & Professions - hearing 6/21/2022
POSITION: Oppose
Thoughts for consideration:
This legislature is moving numerous bills that increase access to abortion in anticipation of the Supreme Court decision expected this summer that may reverse Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that if all the 21 states expected to enact a total ban on abortion actually do, the number of patients who would find their nearest clinic in California would increase by 2,923 percent from 46,000 to 1.4 million. This bill attempts to increase the number of health care providers eligible to perform abortions.
As more health care professions are called on to provide abortions, access to care for other needs will suffer.
Nurse practitioners should be afforded greater scope of practice to assist in life preserving and life enhancing care. But by increasing the scope of practice for nurse practitioners only for the purpose of abortion, this bill further provides for the destruction of the life of the unborn.