Council Members Approve Resolution to Make San Diego a ‘Safe City’ for Abortion

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Hannah Knudsen

Lawmakers this week approved a resolution deeming San Diego a “safe city” for abortion.

San Diego City Councilmembers approved the resolution this week, which appeals to Roe v. Wade and decries the forthcoming decision that could potentially overturn the 1973 ruling. According to the resolution, abortion, in their view, “should not be restricted or denied.”

Lawmakers also assert that “systemic racism and discrimination have left abortion largely out of reach for many disadvantaged communities.” They also take issue with the fact that, if Roe is overturned, each individual state will be able to implement their own restrictions. 

“If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, effectively ending federal constitutional protection for abortion, as many as 26 states may move to ban abortion entirely,” the resolution reads, asserting that San Diego should “serve as a model and commit to support and defend the right to reproductive freedom and safe access to abortion services.”

“The City of San Diego will continue to uphold everyone’s equality and liberty by protecting their reproductive freedom and access to abortion services, welcoming anyone to San Diego to fully exercise their reproductive rights,” it reads, adding, “Today’s action demonstrates the City of San Diego’s strong commitment to safe and legal abortion access.”

Therefore, lawmakers declared San Diego a “safe city for reproductive freedom and access to abortion.”

“No matter what happens with the Supreme Court ruling, no matter who you are or where you come from, no matter the color of your skin or your socioeconomic status, I want everyone to know that you are welcome in the City of San Diego to exercise your reproductive rights,” councilmember Stephen Whitburn said in a statement.

“I want all San Diegans who are scared and frustrated about this potential ruling to know that you have members of this city council and a Mayor that have your back, and we will not back down,” he added.

The city’s resolution comes as the country awaits a final Supreme Court decision on the future of Roe following the leak of a draft opinion that overturned the landmark ruling.

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” the draft opinion, reportedly penned by Justice Samuel Alito, reads in part.

We hold that Roe v. Wade must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

The right to abortion does not fall into this category. Until the latter part of the 20th century, such a right was entirely unknown to American law. Indeed, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three quarters of the States made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy. The abortion right is also critically different from any other right that this Court has held to fall within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of “liberty.” Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called “fetal life” and what the law now before us describes as an “unborn human being.”

Meanwhile, this week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed one of the strictest abortion laws in the country, making it clear that people have the duty to protect a baby’s life from the moment of conception:

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