Planned Parenthood opens in Inglewood community center amid court battle over abortion rights

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (KABC) — The way people have processed the drafted Supreme Court decision that was intercepted on its way to becoming official has manifested in different ways, even in a state that promises to keep abortion rights for all.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell hasn’t known a world without them. She was in elementary school when Roe versus Wade passed.

“And the fact that we could be approaching a next generation of young women and girls that don’t have that right is beyond my imagination,” said Mitchell.

She spoke Friday at Planned Parenthood’s grand opening in Inglewood. President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson made it clear, they’re expanding.

“My husband’s an economist and he would say Black women are actually too big to fail,” said McGill Johnson. “And I keep saying, ‘If we are too big to fail, it must be that we are also too under-resourced to actually succeed.”

The majority of abortions affect Black and Latina women, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

It’s just one of several reasons why nurse practitioner Kara James believes in her work, in this moment and for this community.

“Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth,” said James. “We have the highest rate of morbidity and mortality in the developed world– in one of the richest countries on the planet. That says a lot.”

She’s empowered to be part of what changes that. The Inglewood Planned Parenthood community center is its flagship location of the Black Health Initiative program, and it is Inglewood through and through.

The center features artwork from local artists, and rooms named after Inglewood neighborhoods.

The message is that they’re available, for prenatal care, STD checks, mental and reproductive health resources, and abortions.

“But even with abortion, Black women are more likely to access abortion but are not offered contraceptives after they have a baby,” said James.

This week one of the oldest and most well-known medical journals, the Lancet, published an editorial, paraphrased on its front cover.. saying if the US supreme court confirms this draft decision, women will die… that Justice Alito and his supporters will have women’s blood on their hands.

As California looks for its role in the potential changes, Governor Gavin Newsom announced he wants to budget an extra 57 million dollars, to prepare for an influx of patients, whether they’re from California, or not.