Jerry Brown vetoes bills to provide abortion pills on campus, create drug injection sites

The bill expanding access to abortion would have made abortion pills available to students at the University of California and California State University who are 10 weeks into a pregnancy. Brown said he vetoed the provision because it was “not necessary,” adding abortion services are already easily available to students. He cited a study showing that abortion providers were no more than five to seven miles from each campus.

Nearly $9.6 million in private funds would have been needed to help pay for the program.

The bill allowing for supervised injection sites blocks plans by San Francisco to become the first in the country to open a site, though one is also in the works in Philadelphia. The intent of the program is to connect drug users to treatment facilities, to have healthcare workers on hand to revive people who overdose, and to provide people with clean needles to avoid the spread of HIV and hepatitis C.

Brown said in his veto of the provision that “enabling illegal and destructive drug use will never work.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed wrote on Twitter that the city would “still continue to work with our community partners on trying to come up with a solution to move this effort forward.”

The city can still open the supervised injection site, but it would be violating not only federal law but state law. Other countries, including Canada, have set up the programs.