News

Nearly five years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law aimed at preventing “crisis pregnancy centers” from misrepresenting the prenatal and abortion services they offer, a state lawmaker is trying again with a different approach. The original measure required centers to provide pregnant people seeking help with information about how the state offers free or low-cost prenatal and abortion-related care to qualified applicants. The Supreme Court ruled that this violated the center operators’ First Amendment rights.

In the wake of this year’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs overruling Roe v. Wade, sheriffs and bounty hunters in anti-abortion states will try to investigate and punish abortion seekers based on their internet browsing, private messaging, and phone app location data. We can expect similar tactics from officials in states that have prohibited transgender youths from obtaining gender-affirming health care.

CALIFORNIA, USA — A retail law known as the “Pink Tax” law brings to light gender-based pricing for goods in California, which the author of the bill argues will support women’s economic health and hold companies accountable by eliminating the "Pink Tax" in California once and for all."

Alameda County – Gov. Gavin Newsom signed hundreds of bills into law in 2022, many of them coming to fruition in the New Year. They range from abortion rights to hate crimes to climate change, workplace conditions and housing. There’s even one that makes jaywalking legal.

MARTINEZ, CA – Contra Costa Community College District (4CD) now has the opportunity to conduct outreach activities to specific traditionally underserved populations of Contra Costa County about the high quality instruction and student services offered by its colleges.

ORINDA, CA -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed into law AB 2089, Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer Kahan (D-Orinda)’s bill to protect mental health data privacy.

If a patient answered certain sensitive mental health questions in a doctor’s office, any information collected would be protected by federal health privacy laws like HIPAA. However, if a patient answered these questions to connect to a mental health provider through an online app, the service could, and does, harvest and sell this information.

(The Center Square) – Charging more for pink razors, fruit-scented deodorants and other products marketed toward women that are “substantially similar” to products marketed to men would be outlawed in California under a bill sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Assembly Bill 1287 seeks to eliminate the “pink tax” within California – a phenomenon where products marketed toward women are more expensive than the same products marketed to men.

Alameda County – A handful of Tri-Valley Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan’s bills are now on their way to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

One that recently passed the state legislature was Assembly Bill (AB) 2146, which is designed to limit the use of five pesticides that kill bees, birds and butterflies. The Senate voted 30-4 on Aug. 29 to pass AB 2146. The next day, the Assembly concurred 53-18.

If Newsom signs it into law, the action will curb the use of neonicotinoid, or neonic, pesticides in non-agricultural settings, such as home gardens and golf courses.

California is on the verge of making it easier for nurse practitioners to provide abortions, barring coroner investigations following a fetal death and dedicating $20 million to expand access to reproductive care programs in Los Angeles County under bills passed by the state Legislature before the body adjourned Wednesday.

Digital privacy is a huge concern in the post-Roe world, one where women’s bodies, or at least their uteruses, are increasingly considered community property in less enlightened states than California.

Women are being warned to delete their period-tracking apps, turn off our location tracking as if we are Russian spies crawling into Mar-a-Lago closets, and, gasp, pick up the phone rather than text.

California legislators are working on a clever way to help women, though — across the country, not just in our state.