Police officers forcing women to take pregnancy tests during traffic stops, pregnant mothers being chained to hospital beds while tests are performed to verify rape — such are the dystopian images offered by California’s pro-abortion governor in a new spate of ads aired across the country. Starting Sunday, Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) and his pro-abortion PAC Campaign for Democracy debuted a 30-second TV spot entitled “Fugitive” in Alabama. The video depicts a young woman trying to cross state lines to seek an abortion who is pulled over by a police officer armed with a pregnancy test. A narrator intones, “Trump Republicans want to criminalize young Alabama women who travel for reproductive care.”
The ad refers to legislation recently introduced into the Alabama House of Representatives which would criminalize aiding minors in seeking abortions without parental consent. Sponsored by Rep. Mark Gidley (R), H.B. 370 states, “This bill would provide that it is a Class A misdemeanor for any person, with the intent to conceal an abortion from a minor’s parents or guardian, to harbor or transport a minor girl and obtain, or aid and abet her in obtaining, an abortion or abortion-inducing drug.” Although Newsom’s ad expressly portrays the young woman seeking an abortion as the target of the Alabama bill, the legislation itself stipulates that it “would not authorize criminal penalties or civil liability against a minor girl.”
Newsom took aim at similar legislation in Tennessee earlier this year, with an ad entitled “Hostage,” depicting a crying young woman handcuffed to a hospital gurney awaiting the results of a “sexual assault evidence collection kit.” Like Alabama’s bill, Tennessee’s H.B. 1895, sponsored by Rep. Jason Zachary (R), would outlaw attempts to seek out, harbor, or transport underage girls for the purposes of committing an out-of-state abortion. While Alabama’s bill would classify such efforts as a Class A misdemeanor (punishable by up to one year in jail and fines of up to $6,000), Tennessee’s bill would make them a Class C felony (punishable by 3 to 15 years in prison and fines of up to $10,000). The narrator of Newsom’s ad says, “Don’t let [Trump Republicans] hold Tennessee women hostage.”
Both ads direct viewers to “take action” by visiting Campaign for Democracy’s “Right to Travel” website to sign petitions opposing the targeted legislation. Noting that transporting minors out of state to seek abortions may soon be criminalized in both Alabama and Tennessee, as well as Oklahoma, the website says, “These are states that basically want to imprison women and young girls. It’s a backdoor nationwide abortion ban, denying women the opportunity to go to a freedom state.”
Newsom’s out-of-state pro-abortion advertising is not a novelty. After the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Golden State governor funneled his reelection campaign money into billboards in states like Texas and Mississippi where pro-life laws had been enacted. The billboards often depicted women in handcuffs accompanied by slogans like, “Texas doesn’t own your body. You do.” The billboards also directed people to visit an official California state government website promoting abortion and providing those in other states with instructions on how to seek abortions in California. Later that year, Newsom continued to spend reelection campaign money on TV ads supporting an effort to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right in California and make the state an “abortion sanctuary.”
Also on Sunday, Newsom announced plans to introduce “emergency legislation” to invite Arizona abortionists to California to continue committing abortions, in the wake of an Arizona State Supreme Court ruling upholding a pro-life law and banning abortion in almost all circumstances. President Joe Biden also launched a series of pro-abortion ads in Arizona, endorsing a ballot initiative which would enumerate a “right” to abortion in the state’s constitution.
Democrats across the nation have made abortion the central pillar of their 2024 campaigns. The Biden-Harris campaign reportedly “plans to spend every day until Nov. 5” focusing on abortion, including stunts such as Vice President Kamala Harris’s nationwide “abortion tour” and Biden’s scheduled visit to Florida to promote a pro-abortion ballot initiative. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting at least seven states, all of which will feature abortion-related ballot initiatives in November, for pro-abortion messaging, hoping to score a potential 18 congressional seats on the strength of abortion alone. Meanwhile, Republicans have largely abandoned the issue of abortion, either following former President Donald Trump’s lead and declaring it a “states’ issue” or else outright adopting pro-abortion rhetoric.
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
