An abortion fight in Beverly Hills exposes the limits of California’s ‘reproductive freedom’

BEVERLY HILLS — The billboards popped up in January, looming above busy intersections near the city limits of Beverly Hills, where such advertising is banned.

“Los Angeles should be SAFE for abortion seekers,” declared the signs, which depicted a group of four young women of color staring defiantly at passersby. “Fight back against attempts to shut down DuPont Clinic.”

Weeks later, at a forum ahead of Beverly Hills’ March city council election, moderator Andrea Grossman pressed the crowded table of candidates about their position on abortion rights.

“Are you pro-choice, and what is your view about abortion clinics in Beverly Hills?” she asked. “Would you take steps to keep out abortion clinics in the city if there were likely to be disruptive protests?”

Nearly a year after DuPont Clinic — a Washington, D.C., provider that performs abortions into the third trimester and sought to open a clinic in one of California’s wealthiest and most famous communities — lost its lease at a medical center on Wilshire Boulevard, Grossman and a small band of local activists are still laboring to draw a spotlight and stoke a sense of outrage that matches their own.

Despite the sympathetic politics of Beverly Hills, which lit its city hall pink to protest the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision that overturned a constitutional right to abortion, it has been a struggle. While more than two-thirds of local voters joined Californians statewide that November to enshrine “reproductive freedom” in California’s constitution, few of them now seem to be paying attention to what Grossman calls a “hideous” situation that undermines that very protection.

On a recent afternoon, Grossman sat in her living room with other members of a group they founded last fall to demand attention and accountability for DuPont Clinic — furious that Beverly Hills had failed to stand up to anti-abortion protestors and defend a provider offering a procedure not commonly available elsewhere, and frustrated that liberals remain oblivious to the threats to abortion access in their own backyard.

“In 2023, to have to start Beverly Hills for Choice,” she said, “how crazy is that?” Read more >>>