Now, Maine Democrats are pushing a invoice to eradicate copays for abortion, a coverage California enacted final 12 months and that Bonta is defending in courtroom from a lawsuit filed by anti-abortion disaster being pregnant facilities.

And in Minnesota, the place Democrats flipped management of the legislature within the 2022 midterms, lawmakers are pushing the Reproductive Freedom Protection Act that replicates a number of California insurance policies geared toward defending sufferers and suppliers from authorized peril.

“One of many locations we regarded to for inspiration was the blueprint that got here out of California,” Democratic state Sen. Erin Maye Quade mentioned in an interview. “Minnesota has by no means had a reproductive freedom majority in each chambers, ever, in its historical past, till now. So it was a brand new muscle we needed to develop.”

California’s instance, she added, was “tremendous useful.”

Illinois simply handed a regulation to guard docs treating out-of-state sufferers, as California did final 12 months. And Missouri and Washington lawmakers have launched payments much like California’s that may forestall state officers and regulation enforcement from acquiring private medical information from interval trackers and different well being apps.

Massachusetts’ regulation to make abortion capsules accessible on public faculty and college campuses, inspired by California’s and handed in July, is ready to take impact later this 12 months. And New York could also be proper behind them.

“Every state is, clearly, totally different, however we positively are watching what [California] is doing,” mentioned New York Democratic Assemblymember Amy Paulin, who chairs the well being committee in Albany. “Like them, now we have to offer entry, to one of the best of our potential, for folks in our states and permit folks to return right here and avail themselves of it as properly.”

New York lawmakers additionally voted Tuesday to place a constitutional modification codifying abortion rights on the poll in 2024 — one thing California did final 12 months.

Maryland lawmakers not too long ago invited Bonta to testify as they debated their very own measures to defend abortion suppliers and their sufferers from prosecution, and California officers met with Vice President Kamala Harris, previously the state’s legal professional common, to stroll her via the brand new insurance policies and supply recommendation for different states that wish to comply with swimsuit.

The Newsom administration created a website that lists all the actions the state has taken associated to abortion — administrative, govt and legislative — with the total invoice language accessible ought to any legislator in one other state wish to copy it.

“The kind of struggle we’re having right here is happening elsewhere within the nation, so there’s no have to reinvent the wheel,” mentioned Julia Spiegel, the deputy authorized secretary for Newsom.

Changing into an ‘abortion sanctuary’

California’s new abortion legal guidelines have been crafted to serve two functions: To shore up protections for folks looking for and offering abortions and to develop entry to the process.

Within the first class are legal guidelines that block California regulation enforcement and personal firms from cooperating with different states that try to prosecute somebody over an abortion carried out in California and legal guidelines that additionally block out-of-state subpoenas and requests for details about the process. There may be additionally a brand new regulation to defend folks within the state from prison and civil legal responsibility in the event that they expertise a miscarriage — a direct response to a prosecutor in Kings County who jailed two California girls in recent times over alleged drug use throughout being pregnant that resulted in stillbirth.

Different new state legal guidelines are geared toward getting ready California’s clinics to look after the hundreds of sufferers from across the nation who’re already touring from anti-abortion states — and ensuring that inflow doesn’t impede California residents’ entry.

Greater than $200 million in state funding has been allotted to assist folks from different states pay for journey, lodging and different wants, reimburse docs for offering abortions to folks unable to afford them, and assist clinics rent and practice extra suppliers.

Most of that funding has but to be dispersed. However as clinics within the state proceed to be inundated with sufferers six months after the autumn of Roe, Dipti Singh, the final counsel for Deliberate Parenthood of Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley, mentioned different new state legal guidelines are already having an affect. Amongst them: a swifter and simpler course of for out-of-state suppliers to turn out to be licensed in California present new authorized protections for medical employees who carry out the process.

“We have been afraid many suppliers would say they wouldn’t do abortions [on out-of-state patients] anymore due to the private {and professional} dangers. However we’re simply not seeing that,” she mentioned. “And sufferers are persevering with to return throughout as a result of California goes above and past to make sure it’s a reproductive freedom state.”

State officers, together with Newsom, aren’t simply bracing for touring sufferers — they’re actively courting them.

Along with paying for billboards final 12 months in South Dakota, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas selling the state as an “abortion sanctuary,” the Newsom administration launched a web-based instrument to assist folks across the nation discover a California supplier, make an appointment and study concerning the state’s new authorized protections and monetary helps.

Within the 4 months because the web site launched, the governor’s workplace instructed POLITICO, there have been practically 60,000 distinctive guests and practically 60 p.c of them are from outdoors of California.