Dev Mode. Emulators used.

Councilmembers Morales & Herbold announce legislation protecting abortion access

Publish Date: 7/21/2022
Description: Following the the U.S. Supreme Courts overruling of Roe v. Wade, Councilmember Tammy J. Morales (District 2, Chinatown / International District and South Seattle) and Councilmember Lisa Herbold (District 1, West Seattle and South Park) are joined by reproductive justice advocates to announce legislation that will protect people seeking abortions in Seattle. Speakers and attendees include: Councilmember Lisa Herbold, Seattle City Council Councilmember Tammy Morales, Seattle City Council Kim Clark, Legal Voice Kia Guarino, Pro-Choice Washington Yvette Maganya, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates (PPAA) View the City of Seattle's commenting policy: seattle.gov/online-comment-policy
SPEAKER_00

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

I'm Tammy Morales, Seattle City Councilmember representing District 2, CID, down to Rainier Beach.

I also serve as the Vice Chair for the Seattle-King County Board of Health.

I want to thank you all for joining us this very early morning.

We're joined today by several community partners from Legal Voice, Planned Parenthood, and Pro-Choice Washington, as well as my colleague, Councilmember Lisa Herbold, and I want to thank everybody for being here.

I'm going to make my remarks, but first I do want to introduce the other speakers who are going to be here today.

We have Kim Clark, who is legal director for Reproductive Rights, Health, and Justice at Legal Voice, a nonprofit organization that advances gender equity throughout the Pacific Northwest through impact litigation, policy advocacy, and legal rights education.

Ms. Clark's work includes cases in federal and state court throughout the Pacific Northwest that seek to protect and expand rights of all people to reproductive justice.

Ms. Clark also manages an extensive portfolio of policy initiatives in both Washington and Idaho.

Ms. Clark holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA from the University of Arizona.

Next, we'll be hearing from Kia Guarino, the Executive Director of ProChoice Washington, which is the lead organization dedicated to political and legislative advocacy for reproductive freedom in Washington State.

Kia brings a background in global health and international development, having worked with gender and health equity advocates in communities across the world, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Albright Stonebridge Group, the Clinton Foundation, Operation Smile, and Amnesty International.

She also earned her Master's in International Economics and a Master's in International Health from Johns Hopkins University.

Next, we have Yvette Maguña, who serves as the Washington Government Relations Manager at Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates.

Yvette previously worked with One America and Fuse Washington and brings her background as a community organizer into the work she does to fight for reproductive justice, economic justice, and immigrant rights.

And we will be hearing from my colleague, Lisa Herbold, representing District 1. Councilmember Herbold is also on the King County Board of Health with me.

And our offices have been working together on this legislation that I'm very glad to be co-sponsoring with her.

So that's our lineup for today, and we'll just pass it off to one another.

So we're here today after weeks of onslaught and attacks on human rights from our U.S.

Supreme Court.

I know the past months have been particularly heavy for many across the country.

On June 24th, the Supreme Court disregarded 50 years of precedence and achieved their agenda to take away a person's right to choose by forcing people to give birth against their will, by violating human and constitutional rights.

While this decision has led to unspeakable sorrow, fury, and anxiety, we must not let it lead to despair.

One in four women in this country has had an abortion, including me.

I'm terrified and outraged that for many people who will need abortion care today and every day forthcoming, and particularly for black and brown folks across this country, their protection and their privacy is in jeopardy.

Make no mistake, this ruling by the Supreme Court is mandating forced pregnancy and taking away the right to self-determination and personal freedom.

While we in Seattle and Washington have the secure right to abortion, too many across the country do not.

From a municipal standpoint, I'm focusing on protections that we can put in place to extend care to the people who will be crossing state lines to seek the care they deserve in our city.

Our office has been working on legislation since the Supreme Court's draft opinion was leaked, and there's two pieces of legislation that will be coming up in my committee tomorrow.

The first is Council Bill 120374. It's an ordinance that would guarantee civil rights protections for those who have received or are seeking abortions.

With the increase in expected travel to the City of Seattle, For those who are seeking abortion care, there will be lots of wraparound services including hotel and meals provided by businesses.

So this legislation would ensure that people who are seeking abortion are protected at every step along the way and cannot be discriminated against.

It's also important to note that these protections will apply regardless of one's documentation status and in concurrence with many of our other city regulations.

The second piece of legislation is Council Bill 120376. It would create a misdemeanor charge for people who encroach on individuals seeking abortion care or gender affirming care by physically blocking access to a healthcare facility where these services are provided.

Examples of this include physically obstructing access to a healthcare facility where services are provided.

Wait, I just said that.

Sorry.

Or impeding the passage of people seeking to enter or depart from a facility, making noise that unreasonably disrupts the people within the facility, or threatening to inflict injury on the people or employees of the facility.

This legislation adopts RCW 9A-50-020 around interference at healthcare facilities into the Seattle Criminal Code.

In essence, it would allow the city attorney's office to prosecute a misdemeanor in Seattle Municipal Court, and this protection would extend to those who are visiting facilities to access gender-affirming care, such as surgery or hormones.

These two bills are just the beginning of protections that we have working in the city.

I will say we're also working on legislation that would regulate crisis pregnancy centers in Seattle.

Crisis pregnancy centers are typically conservative Christian organizations that work to persuade pregnant people against having abortions.

They often appear to operate as abortion clinics that provide emergency contraception or referral to those services, but they do not actually provide that information once a patient enters, instead redirecting them to adoption or other alternatives.

And our legislation would work to ensure that these facilities cannot make public statements that are false or misleading by creating penalties for engaging in this kind of information.

We're modeling this legislation from other jurisdictions, specifically the San Francisco ordinance, where they've been successful in upholding this ordinance.

Also, my office is leveraging every resource available to protect abortion services for those who need it.

I want to thank Council Member Herbold for her continued partnership on this critical work, as well as all of the healthcare workers, service providers, and advocates who have been doing this important, life-saving work.

I also want to name my appreciation for both Mayor Harrell and for King County Executive Constantine, both of whom have put forth commitments from the municipal and the county level to contribute to abortion funds in the Northwest.

I know this is just a start and that reproductive justice organizers have been anticipating these rollbacks for decades.

But what gives me hope in these times is knowing that across the country, there are robust support systems that have been in place to support access to abortion care and reproductive health care for years.

As electeds, we must come together to organize and ensure that everyone's fundamental right to privacy and the right to decide what to do with their own bodies is protected.

I'm proud to stand firm alongside my colleagues and community advocates today and declare that Seattle is a city where we strengthen existing protections and we create systems of support for people who are seeking abortion care.

The fight for reproductive justice will continue and I will be supporting these fights at every level that I can.

Thank you all for being here today and I am going to pass it to Kim Clark.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much, Councilmember Morales.

Again, my name is Kim Clark, and I'm the Legal Director at Legal Voice, which has been working to advance gender equity throughout the Pacific Northwest for over 40 years.

As Councilmember Morales said, make no mistake, the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is an unprecedented attack.

by the highest court in the land on the fundamental rights of people who can become pregnant, which will profoundly impact other areas of the law as well.

That the court did so without so much as acknowledging the impacts that its decision would have on the real lives of people who can become pregnant, especially the most marginalized, speaks volumes.

Thankfully, abortion remains legal in Washington regardless of this deeply flawed decision.

But that doesn't mean that the decision won't impact Washington.

In fact, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that there will be an increase, a 385% increase, in people who rely on Washington providers for abortion care.

While Washington welcomes all those in need, without a significant infusion of resources, this massive influx of patients into our state will constrain access even here.

We also know that anti-abortion states won't stop at banning abortion within their borders, but will try every way possible to punish out-of-state providers for offering assistance to those in need of abortions, and even punishing pregnant people themselves.

At the very least, we need protections, legal protections, to ensure that the state of Washington won't cooperate in those state attacks, which lawmakers at the state level are working to develop.

But in the meantime, the anti-abortion movement is feeling emboldened.

That means that we can expect even more attacks on the rights of people who can become pregnant and other communities as well, especially those who stand at the intersection of multiple forms of oppression.

by actors such as private employers, health care providers, and other places of public accommodation.

That's why the anti-discrimination protections that Councilmember Morales spoke of are so important.

We've also seen already a drastic uptick in threatening and harassing protest activity outside of reproductive health clinics throughout our states, which we know will only get worse.

Intimidation and harassment of patients and providers has long been a strategy of the anti-abortion movement, especially in states like Washington.

In fact, because it's one of the only strategies that works for them here.

Increasingly, that strategy of intimidating and harassing patients and providers includes digital surveillance.

And while the risks to patient privacy are numerous, there is none more concerning than the vast network of fake clinics the anti-abortion movement has built throughout the country to surveil pregnant people and to prevent them from accessing abortion and contraception.

And of course I'm talking about crisis pregnancy centers, which are fake clinics that outnumber real reproductive health clinics by three to one in the United States, including in the state of Washington.

And these clinics exist to spread misinformation and prevent pregnant people from accessing abortion care.

But they also serve another purpose that people are less aware of, and that's to collect vast amounts of personal health information that can now be used to support civil and criminal cases against pregnant people and their providers.

And that's because the majority of crisis pregnancy centers not only spread misinformation, they actually provide no medical services whatsoever.

They may provide drugstore pregnancy tests and keepsake ultrasounds, which are exactly what they sound like, basically a souvenir.

But the people operating those ultrasound machines often don't have the skills to read the results, much less diagnose pregnancy complications.

But what this means is that most crisis pregnancy centers are not subject to HIPAA or any other privacy protections, which means that they can use the personal health information that they're collecting from unsuspecting patients, basically however they see fit.

Again, this is another reason why it's so important to regulate the activities of crisis pregnancy centers and that we be aware of what they are.

Fortunately, advocates and providers in Washington stand ready to meet these challenges with the support of strong leaders at all levels of government.

The Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is on the wrong side of history.

But make no mistake, we here in Washington and in Seattle in particular will continue to fight until all people truly enjoy true reproductive justice.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Good morning.

My name is Kia Guarino again, and I'm the Executive Director of Pro-Choice Washington, which is the leading grassroots advocacy organization in Washington State that has been working to promote and protect reproductive freedom for every single person for nearly 50 years.

I want to thank Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Morales for your leadership, as well as the other leaders across Washington State who are standing up for the protection of these critical rights.

I also want to acknowledge the hard work of my fellow community activists who have, for decades, been working to prepare for this moment, which is why we are, in Seattle and Washington, able to meet this moment through important legislation and through activism.

So this legislation, along with continued local investments in reproductive abortion funds, like the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, as well as reproductive clinics, is really essential to meet this moment.

And you've heard my colleague speak about the unprecedented expectations of patient needs, both across Washington and across the country, that we in Seattle specifically, but across Washington, will need to meet.

So we need to make additional investments to prepare.

We also know that this moment is not necessarily going to stay the same for Washington, that we have a lot of work to do as activists, as individuals, to continue to protect our rights here.

And that means that we all have a responsibility to continue to work to protect both quality care and to counter the stigma that has allowed us to get here.

So all of us have a responsibility to be able to speak a little bit more clearly about abortion rights as fundamental health care rights, as fundamental human rights, as fundamental civil rights, and as a critical component of socioeconomic advancement for all people.

Even here in Washington, we know that abortion access is protected, but it is not equally protected for every single person, and that includes discriminatory restrictions within our health care system.

So along with these investments, along with this important legislation, we need to continue to work to counter other discriminatory biases within our health care system, including the restriction of care across hospitals in Washington state.

So over the last decade, we have seen a 26% increase in hospital beds being subject to discriminatory restrictions in the policies within those hospitals.

And this results in a refusal of care for reproductive care, for gender-affirming care, and other important basic health care rights in Washington.

So when we consider the influx of patients that will be arriving, we need to recognize that there are restrictions across our health system that still need to be addressed.

We still need to look at those health systems and we still need to hold our own systems accountable for the rights that they are denying.

As you've also heard several times, crisis pregnancy centers are essential to address.

They are denying quality care.

They are putting people in medical risk by either providing misinformation or refusing to provide accurate information, and they are also putting patients at significant risk through the privacy, the data privacy issues that Kim so clearly articulated for us.

And this is a moment where we all need to come together, we all need to recognize that This is the first very important step, and we are deeply privileged to be in a place that still has room for steps, but that there is a lot of work that we all have to do as individuals to continue to counter the stigma, to continue to counter medical discrimination, and to continue to push for funding for our abortion funds and our clinics.

So thank you very much, and I will pass it now to Yvette.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Kia.

And thank you, Council Members Morales and Council Member Herbold, for your ongoing leadership in protecting and advancing abortion access in Seattle.

We are grateful to have you as allies and champions on this critical care.

My name is Yvette Magana, and I'm the Washington Government Relations Manager at Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates.

It's been almost a month since the Supreme Court overturned nearly 50 years of precedent and eliminated the fundamental right to abortion.

In that time, my colleagues at Planned Parenthood and abortion providers around the country have seen patients who are scared, unsure of where to turn, and being stripped of the right to this fundamental basic healthcare.

In Washington State, thanks to decades of relentless work to defend and expand our rights by leaders here in Seattle and across the state, abortion is still legal.

Abortion providers here in Washington are and will remain open to all patients.

But we're not just here for Washington patients.

We're here for everyone, no matter what state you live in, no matter who your lawmakers and governor are, providers in Washington are here to welcome you with open arms.

We are already seeing patients from states across the country whose own lawmakers have abandoned them and left them without access to basic health care.

It's because of strong support and unwavering commitment of leaders like Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Herbold that we expect, as Kim Clark stated earlier, an influx of patients in the coming months and years.

Studies estimate that we expect a 385% growth in out-of-state patients traveling to Washington to access abortion care.

That's why policies announced today are so critical to safeguarding and maintaining abortion access in Seattle.

We want our providers and patients to be safe, protected, and empowered to continue to provide abortion throughout the county and the entire state, no matter what.

And let's be clear, we know not all patients who want to travel to Washington to access abortion will be able to get here for care.

The state abortion bans sweeping the country are disproportionately feeling Black, Latino, Indigenous, and other people of color, people with low incomes, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, immigrants, and more due to this country's legacy of racism and systemic oppression.

Abortion is healthcare, period.

We are grateful for the leaders here today and across the state for standing strong and ensuring patients can rely on Washington State for healthcare.

Thank you again to Councilmembers Morales and Herbold for being a strong voice for our providers, patients, and our reproductive healthcare community.

We look forward to working in partnership with you and I'll now hand it to Councilmember Herbold.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Yvette.

Thank you, Kim.

Thank you, Kia.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Good morning.

I'm Lisa Herbold.

I represent District 1, West Seattle and South Park, and I provide oversight of public health issues via my committee, and I serve on the Board of Health.

Here in Seattle, we're used to thinking about earthquakes.

The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs is the big one of catastrophic earthquakes that we've always known was coming.

the expected almost four-fold increase in people seeking abortions.

Here is the tidal wave created by that earthquake, and it's headed our way.

Providers are reporting patients seeking care from as far away as Texas and Louisiana.

We must get ready and we must do so quickly.

Pregnant people don't have the luxury of time to make decisions about abortion.

I appreciate the leadership of Council Member Morales, her team, my staff, for moving quickly to identify regulatory fixes that will help pregnant people.

In May, the Council passed a resolution calling to support abortion access, I offered an amendment at the recommendation of advocates to direct funds to the Northwest Abortion Action Fund for logistical support, care, and safety for people seeking abortion here.

The Guttmacher Institute predicts Washington could see a 385 percent increase and patients from out of state seeking reproductive care here, enough to flood clinics across the state, including here in Seattle.

In Washington, we know that abortion is health care, full stop.

62% of Washington residents want to help people from other states receive abortions here.

That's exactly what these funds will do.

I thank Mayor Harrell for answering the call of the council's resolution with $250,000 for the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, which the council will vote to approve next week.

I'm also really concerned about hospital consolidation, as we've heard today.

The ACLU of Washington estimates that up to 50% of hospital beds in our state are now in religiously affiliated hospitals.

Patients in those hospitals can't access the full range of health care that they may require, and no one is required to tell them that they're being denied health care options.

Our state legislature must pass this session, the Keep Our Care Act, to prevent further hospital consolidation if it negatively impacts a community's access to affordable, comprehensive, quality health care.

including reproductive care, end-of-life care, and gender-affirming care.

This is essential.

Because we expect an influx of pregnant people coming, likely unfamiliar with our health care systems, I'm working with advocates, the Board of Health, and with public health to ensure more accessible and accurate information so patients can understand what reproductive health care they can and can't receive at the provider that they've chosen.

We also know that data privacy is a bleeding edge in this fight, particularly as states with punitive draconian laws seek to enforce their laws across state borders into our state, let's address the specific dangers that pregnant people seeking abortion here will face when it comes to data privacy.

And app-based period trackers, Google searches, and location tracking, these tools must not be used against pregnant people seeking care here from out of state, or even used against those who help those people.

This is the beginning of the crisis.

Thanks to our extraordinary network of advocates and providers, we can make educated guesses about its impact and move to meet the challenge.

But its full impact is simply not known.

We do not know everything that will be needed to keep medical refugees, their providers, and those who support them safe.

because don't forget it, these folks are medical refugees coming to our state for care.

Precisely because abortion remains safe and legal in Washington State, Seattle must welcome all people who need abortion access services no matter where they live.

Our community is committed to abortion access.

Let's pledge together to continue this work so that comprehensive healthcare services are available to all.

hand it back over to Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean that that 385% everybody's talking about the expectation is that most of those would be from Idaho and Montana.

So it's it's certainly urgent for us to be prepared for that influx of people that we're expecting.

Well, I'm not sure about whether right here in Seattle, but across the state, certainly.

But as we've also mentioned, because 40, 50 percent of our beds are in Catholic hospitals that refuse to provide this care, it's going to be a crisis for us.

So we need to be prepared.

We need to be ready in our hospital system.

I mean, we expect there to be a strain, which is why it's so important for us to, you know, make contributions to the Abortion Access Fund, get our providers ready, make sure that our systems are set up and that we are prepared to not just support the folks who are here in Washington and Seattle already, but be prepared to support the people who are going to be coming.

I think they are reviewing them.

I don't know.

We have certainly had conversations with the Executive's Office, so yeah.

Thanks everybody.

Really appreciate you being here.