EDITORIAL

As the year comes to a close, the DuPont Clinic that was supposed to open in the fall of 2023 has still not made its debut. The potential women’s health clinic that would offer abortions at nearly all points in pregnancy was immediately targeted by outside forced-birth groups with little to no affiliation with the city of Beverly Hills, where the clinic was set to open at 8920 Wilshire Blvd. 

In early October, the city of Beverly Hills and several city officials were named in a lawsuit that alleged causes of action for inducing breach of contract and interference with contractual and economic relations and misrepresentation, among others. The complaint sought both compensatory and punitive damages. The case specifically names defendants Mayor Julian Gold, City Manager Nancy Hunt-Coffey, Deputy City Manager Keith Sterling, City Attorney Laurence Weiner, and Chief of Police Mark Stainbrook. 

Additionally, in August, DuPont filed a separate complaint against the building landlord Douglas Emmett Inc., alleging its lease to operate the clinic was wrongly terminated. In September, the State Attorney General’s Office issued an investigative subpoena on the city, seeking answers to an extensive list of interrogatories and document production requests regarding the city’s involvement in the matter of  “Reproductive Clinic Openings in Beverly Hills.”

DuPont claims that both the landlord and the city were unfairly influenced by forced-birth interests, more specifically the group “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.” The lawsuit alleges that “The city and Douglas Emmett have colluded together in the face of political pressure of the anti-abortion community instead of protecting DuPont and the right to abortion enshrined in the California Constitution.” They note that with this preemptive closure, the city has directly harmed thousands of women who will be unable to access critical health care as the clinic will not be able to help them. 

We at Westside Voice sharply condemn this infringement upon the rights of women, clearly outlined in the California Constitution. As a state that touts itself as a safe haven for women’s reproductive rights, we find this blatant violation of those values to be abhorrent. It is even more shameful that any decision-making body would allow itself to be bullied by radical right-wing agitators. 

Before the filing, the controversy over the clinic rightly prompted a flood of anger from pro-choice advocates in Beverly Hills and beyond. Residents organizing under Beverly Hills for Choice have inundated public comment during City Council meetings and created a Change.org petition in support of DuPont. The Change.org petition also calls for the investigation into communications among city officials, the Beverly Hills Police Department, Douglas Emmett, and forced-birth organizations. 

Further, the ploy to stop the opening of the clinic is antithetical to the values Californians hold. Women’s health institutions that perform necessary abortions later in pregnancy, a function reproductive rights activists say is desperately needed in California, are often the same clinics facing major scrutiny. 

There is a California statute restricting abortions after a fetus is viable, at about 24 to 26 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for the mother if their life or health is in danger. This makes California abortion law more convoluted than those in the nation’s capital and six states including Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont. In all these places, there are no gestational limits as to when an abortion is legal.

Sadly, even in the state of California, support for the procedure is not absolute. In a poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, only 42 percent of likely voters said it should be legal in all cases while 33 percent said it should be allowed in most cases.  

The DuPont Clinic markets itself as being able to perform abortions beyond this gestational date, from 26 weeks to 31 weeks and six days. California’s fetal viability limit is where the clinic gets caught, as while the state of California approved Proposition 1, adding the right to an abortion to the state constitution, the law does not mention the word “viability.” Across the U.S., only 13 clinics perform abortions beyond 24 weeks of pregnancy, with only three of those going beyond 28 weeks according to Access Reproductive Justice, a California abortion fund that offers patients monetary and logistical support. 

Abortions later in a pregnancy are extremely rare, fewer than one percent were performed on or after 21 weeks in 2020, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is important to note that in these cases it’s not likely the mother is seeking abortion for, “No reason at all,” as protesters like to spout, but because there is a serious health risk to the mother or fetus. 

No one decides two-thirds of the way through a pregnancy that they suddenly don’t want their child. It is a rough, personal, and intimate decision that comes with a lot of turmoil and heartbreak that those involved – patient, spouse, doctor, or confidante – have to grapple with. As such, it should be a decision made with thought and compassion, and most importantly between those most closely involved — not outsiders with hateful preconceived notions of what it means to have to terminate a pregnancy with such agonizing circumstances.

At the end of the day, reproductive rights are human rights. By cutting off access to a potential safety valve of those rights that would have been located in our hometown, we are doing a disservice to women in our community and across the country. We are setting a poor example of what a so-called safe haven state looks like and we are prioritizing the voices of a loud minority, that isn’t even based here. Clearly, we need a place like DuPont Clinic in our neighborhood both for literal and figurative safety reasons and they have just as much a right to be here, in Beverly Hills, as any other business, no matter the controversy. Those who caved too quickly might want to consider undergoing an operation themselves to replace their weak spines. 

Illustration by Irina Balashova