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Back to the Future

Governor Gray Davis Legalizes Back Alley Abortionists

By Cameron O'Shea

In a move that surprised even hardened political insiders, California Governor Gray Davis, a pro-abortion Democrat on Monday, September 25, signed into law senate bill 370, authored by San Franciscan John Burton, Democrat president pro tem of the California senate. Senate bill 370 abolishes three California penal code sections related to criminal abortions. One of these sections had been used to prosecute Alicia Hanna Ruiz, who killed a woman and orphaned her young children while Ruis was performing illegal abortions in Orange County. Ruiz had no medical credentials. Ruiz is now serving a long prison sentence after losing a appeal of her conviction.

"There's no question that Governor Gray Davis took a deliberate political punch at Al Gore. With the recent Federal Drug Administration approval of the abortion pill (RU-486) and now Davis de-criminalizing even back-alley abortionists, Al Gore has to defend an increasingly extreme Democrat party commitment to abortion," said a top political consultant. "It seems that Davis would be pleased to see Al Gore defeated so Davis's own presidential ambitions can advance as rapidly as possible. Everyone, including California Democrats knows that Davis is one of the most self-servingly ambitious politicians around."

An extreme position on abortion seems to one of Gray Davis's few ideological commitments. His action in signing senate bill 370 means that back-alley abortionists such as Ruiz cannot be criminally prosecuted for performing abortions, unless they kill a women or engage in other criminal activity, in addition to or in connection with performing abortions.

While Davis's recent action again exemplifies the extremism of his commitment to abortion, his appointments and top staff show the same commitment. One example is Susan Kennedy, Davis's cabinet secretary and a top adviser who was previously employed as executive secretary of the California Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL). Senate bill 370 was heavily lobbied by Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood made it one of the votes used to rate assembly and senate legislators commitment to their agenda.

Senate bill 370 was originally a bill to protect elderly persons from abuse and had nothing to do with abortion. The elder-abuse bill passed through the senate hearing process and a floor vote and then when it came over to the assembly it was "hijacked" by Senator John Burton. Every word of the elder abuse language was taken out and senate bill 370 became a vehicle to remove the existing penal code sections against abortion. The bill in its completely new form then passed out of the assembly on August 29, two days before the end of the session, and was sent back to the to the senate for concurrence in of the assembly amendments. There were no real senate hearings at all on the bill, except a hasty pro-forma hearing on August 30. In the closing hours of the last day of the session, it was hastily passed by the senate in the final avalanche of legislation. Little or no grass roots opposition was possible against such a streamlining of the legislative process. The bill brings the pro-abortion argument full circle, since it legalizes back-alley abortions, whose prevention was the reason abortion proponents used to get abortion legalized.

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