WHEREAS, January 22, 2022, marks the 49th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113, which affirmed that everyone has a fundamental right to control their own reproductive decisions and to decide whether to continue a pregnancy or obtain an abortion, and is an occasion deserving of acknowledgment; and

WHEREAS, Roe v. Wade has been the cornerstone of an individual’s ability to control their reproductive lives, allowing anyone who can become pregnant in the United States the right to decide when, if, and with whom to have children, how many children to have, and how to parent the children they have in safe and sustainable communities; and

WHEREAS, Roe v. Wade continues to protect the health and freedom of people throughout the United States, and national peer-reviewed studies show abortion is a safe medical procedure, increasingly provided through outpatient medication, that nearly one in four women in the United States will access; and

WHEREAS, Roe v. Wade has helped facilitate economic and societal participation in the United States for all; and

WHEREAS, In 1965, prior to the Roe v. Wade decision, lack of access to safe and legal abortions cost pregnant people their health and their lives, accounting for approximately 17 percent of all reported deaths attributable to pregnancy and childbirth, and many were severely injured as a result of unsafe abortion procedures; and

WHEREAS, Interference with access to a safe and legal abortion can lead to the rise of criminalization of pregnancy outcomes and a rise in incarceration of pregnant people; and

WHEREAS, Roe v. Wade is currently being challenged in the United States Supreme Court and at risk of being overturned or severely eroded due to the appointment of conservative justices to the United States Supreme Court who have a record of being hostile to a person’s constitutional right to an abortion; and

WHEREAS, Twenty-six states are poised to ban abortion access in the event that Roe v. Wade is overturned or gutted, impacting 36,000,000 women and even more people who could become pregnant; and

WHEREAS, A recent Guttmacher Report shows there could be a 2,923-percent increase in out-of-state women of reproductive age who would find their nearest abortion provider in California if Roe v. Wade is overturned; and

WHEREAS, The year of 2021 has been the worst year for abortion access in history, with more than 106 abortion restrictions being enacted in 19 states, including 12 abortion bans; and

WHEREAS, Providers of sexual and reproductive health care are still under serious, unrelenting attack for providing essential information and services, such as abortion, as evidenced by bomb threats, arson, and vandalism in California and the fact that death threats against abortion providers nearly doubled, incidents of clinic invasion doubled, and bomb threats were nearly tripled, nationally from 2018 to 2019 alone; and

WHEREAS, The State of California stands in strong support of every individual’s fundamental right, as confirmed in Roe v. Wade, to make decisions regarding pregnancy and commits to boldly advancing access to sexual and reproductive health care within our state; now, therefore, be it