SACRAMENTO, California — The city of Beverly Hills will have to start training employees on abortion protections under a judgment issued Thursday by state Attorney General Rob Bonta, who accused city officials of violating state law by blocking the opening of an abortion clinic.
The so-called stipulated judgment, under which Beverly Hills did not admit wrongdoing but agreed to certain terms, is the first time Bonta’s office has taken action to enforce the state’s constitutional right to abortions, approved by voters under Proposition 1 in 2022.
Bonta said during a press conference Thursday that the city took a “two-pronged” approach to blocking the clinic, both by delaying permits and pressuring the landlord.
“You don’t have to be Texas or a red state to be a place where reproductive health care is under attack,” Bonta said. “We can't just say this is a somewhere else problem, this is a right here problem. The threat to reproductive freedom is pervasive, even here in California.”
It’s also the second time in a week Bonta has taken legal action to ensure patients have access to abortions.
Beverly Hills maintains it did nothing wrong. Mayor Lester Friedman argued the city fully cooperated with Bonta’s investigation but claimed the evidence presented demonstrated that the city “did not interfere with the planned opening of the clinic” and that it was not Beverly Hills’ decision to rescind the lease.
“We disagree with the allegations in the Attorney General’s complaint,” Friedman said in a statement.
DuPont Clinic, based in Washington, D.C., and one of the few “all trimester” clinics in the country, announced plans in October 2022 to expand to Beverly Hills.
The future site of the clinic immediately drew protesters, who also showed up to city council meetings. Ultimately the landlord, Douglas Emmett Inc, rescinded the lease.
This incensed activists, who put up billboards in the city to drum up support for DuPont, as POLITICO first reported.
Bonta said he found that city employees “unlawfully interfered with DuPont’s opening” by delaying permits, suggesting that the clinic would be a security threat to other tenants, and “actively engaged in a pressure campaign against the property owner.” He also argued the city could have stayed out of a dispute between the clinic and its landlord.
“They could have just sat back and allowed these two parties to negotiate their lease,” Bonta said.
Bonta said the city manager, police chief, city attorney and former mayor had argued the clinic would be the targets of violent protests, bomb threats and shootings, but they did not provide evidence of such risks.
The DuPont Clinic said that while it’s not unusual for cities to use their power to block clinics, it’s “unprecedented” that the attorney general had to go to court over it.
“Anti-abortion extremism has no place in the state of California, and DuPont will continue to fight for abortion access for Californians and those who need to travel here for care they cannot access in their own states,” the clinic’s director, Dr. Jennefer Russo, said in a statement.
As part of the judgment, the city will have 60 days to start conducting comprehensive training on state and federal reproductive health laws, and will have to appoint a reproductive compliance officer responsible for training employees and elected officials.
Meanwhile, the DuPont Clinic has still not opened and is suing both the city and the landlord over the delay.
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