California Senate Passes Bill to Let Nurses Perform Abortions

..."The measure by Assembly Majority Leader Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat, passed the Senate 25 to 11. The bill now goes back to the Assembly, which passed it in May, to ratify amendments before going to Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat.

If signed, California would allow abortions by midwives, physician assistants and nurse practitioners in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Four others states permit non-physician abortions: Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Vermont, according to a University of California, San Francisco, study. Thirty-nine states require a licensed physician.

“All women should have timely access to reproductive health care regardless of whether they live in urban or rural areas and without excessive expense or travel,” Atkins said in a statement. The bill “will help fill the gap created by the fact that over half of California’s counties lack an abortion provider.”...

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