CA continues fight with other states over reproductive care

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections in 2022, California lawmakers moved quickly to make the state a “safe haven” for reproductive health care. But while California has some of the strongest laws ensuring abortion rights, other states’ restrictions can make performing or seeking the procedure from California doctors more complicated.

On Tuesday California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with 19 other attorneys general, urged the American Medical Association to do more about protecting prospective OB-GYNs seeking certification. To become board certified, OB-GYN candidates must travel to Dallas, where the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology is headquartered, to complete their in-person certifying exam.

Under Senate Bill 8, Texas has a near-total ban on abortions and penalizes abortion providers. Because of this, the attorneys general argue that the in-person requirements lead some candidates from their states to fear for their legal and physical safety in Texas.

Though California struggles to provide wide access to maternity care, there are over 3,000 OB-GYNs employed in California — the highest number of any state — according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Attorneys’ general testimony to the AMA: “The web of confusing and punitive state-based restrictions creates a legal minefield for medical providers. … Indeed, at least one anti-choice group has publicly announced that it is actively recruiting individuals, including disgruntled ex-boyfriends, to bring cases under SB8’s bounty hunter provision.”

The attorneys general suggest either relocating the testing sites to states where abortion is not restricted; pivoting to remote testing; or granting some exemptions to the in-person exam.

Bonta’s call to the medical association comes as the state Senate is considering a bill that aims to protect California abortion providers beyond state lines.

Last week the Assembly advanced the measure, which would help shield California pharmacists, doctors and hospitals from penalties for dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone to out-of-state patients. The proposal would also strengthen privacy protections, such as removing prescriber names from abortion medication labels.

Since their inconsistent April rollout, President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have had the potential to upend California’s businesses, public pensions and budget. But the tariffs are also disrupting workers laboring at the state’s biggest ports, writes CalMatters’ Levi Sumagaysay.

Across California, port executives and spokespeople have reported notable signs of slowdown:

• At the Port of Long Beach, cancellations are beginning to exceed levels seen during the pandemic.
• At the Port of Los Angeles, 80 ships were expected to arrive in May, but 17 have been canceled and 10 have been canceled for June. (In May of last year, there were a total of 12 cancellations.)
• At the Port of Oakland, April saw a significant 15% month-over-month drop in container activity.

With fewer goods coming in and out of the state, there is less work to go around: Union representatives report that part-time port workers aren’t getting any hours, and port security workers are struggling to carry out their jobs with few workers to look after. Truck drivers also say they are seeing less work.

• Eric Tate, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 848, which represents Southern California truck drivers: “We’re trying to gear up and quickly move stuff around. We’re trying to save Christmas.”

Read more here.

By law, the California Department of Technology must submit a report every year on whether state agencies and entities are using high-risk automated systems that can affect people’s lives. 

In its most recent findings, the department said that none of the nearly 200 state entities it surveyed uses high-risk automated systems — despite a handful of legislative analyses concluding that California must spend millions of dollars a year to monitor the state’s use of high-risk algorithms.

As CalMatters’ Khari Johnson explains, high-risk algorithms are systems that can assist or replace human decision making. In the winter of 2020, the California Employment Development Department paused unemployment benefits for 1.1 million people after it used artificial intelligence tools to mistakenly flag thousands of legitimate unemployment applicants as fraudulent. 

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation also uses automated systems to assign recidivism scores to inmates, including one system that has a documented history of racial bias.

But the technology department’s assessment is based on self reports, and it’s up to each agency to determine whether they are using a high-risk system. Critics of the report argue agencies should expand their definition of high-risk systems to include algorithms such as the ones that the employment and corrections departments are using.

Read more here.

California lawmakers reworked a bill that now seeks to provide funding for phonics-based instruction in K-12 public schools, but stops short of requiring the teaching method. CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on the bill as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.