What’s Next for California After Roe’s Reversal

LOS ANGELES — Standing in front of a display of wire hangers at a protest downtown on Friday, hours after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, Gloria Allred told the crowd about an illegal abortion that almost killed her.

It was Los Angeles in the 1960s, before Roe guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. In California at the time, state law made it illegal for people to perform the procedure.

Allred, the famed women’s rights lawyer, was then in her 20s, working as a teacher. She had become pregnant after being raped during a vacation in Mexico and desperately wanted an abortion, she said.

“I managed to get someone who would do it for the money, and who was not a doctor or a nurse, just a stranger,” Allred, 80, said. “He did it, and then he left me in a bathtub hemorrhaging in a pool of my own blood.”

Allred’s story offers a window into the tough choices women could face following the Supreme Court’s ruling, she said. But it also serves as a reminder of how much the abortion landscape has changed in California over the past 50 years.

While dozens of states are planning to ban or severely restrict abortion after Roe’s reversal, California leaders are shoring up resources and passing legislation to make it easier for people to obtain abortions here.

Our State Constitution guarantees a right to an abortion, so the Supreme Court decision won’t change access to the procedure within the state. And as soon as Monday, lawmakers are expected to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot that would more explicitly protect reproductive rights.

Put simply: California is gearing up to be the nation’s abortion provider.

“A lot of women and girls are going to have to become abortion refugees, leaving their home, looking for another state where they can get a legal and safe abortion,” Allred told me in an interview. “We are a haven state, a sanctuary state, in California.”

On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to shield California abortion providers from liability or prosecution related to out-of-state bans on abortions. Newsom also announced an agreement with Oregon and Washington leaders to establish a West Coast abortion firewall that would protect providers and patients from the legal reach of other states.

The governor said the ruling on Friday was “another devastating step toward erasing the rights and liberties Americans have fought for on battlefields, in courthouses and in capitols.”

“This is not the America we know,” Newsom said, “and it’s not the California way.”

The fall of Roe means that approximately 10,600 more people will travel to California each year for abortion care, with the majority coming from Texas or Arizona, according to a U.C.L.A. report. Abortion providers here already had an uptick in out-of-state abortion patients after Texas enacted a strict abortion law last year.

Amanda Roberti, an assistant professor of political science at San Francisco State University, said that California, with its legal protections and programs to defray the costs of travel for patients, will undoubtedly feel the impacts of Roe’s reversal.

So many people from out of state could seek abortions here that the demand may overwhelm clinics and increase waiting times for California patients, she said.

“California and other states are going to have to figure out ways in which to deal with the fallout from other states’ policies,” she told me. “This is something kind of monumental. This overturns 50 years of precedent, and I think folks are going to be desperately seeking the medical attention that they need.”

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Ashley Conrad-Saydah, who lives in Sacramento. Ashley recommends a trip to the northeast corner of California:

“We just returned from a camping trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park. It is a great destination — much less trafficked than Yosemite or Point Reyes, but just as stunning. The Dixie fire swept through portions of the park last year. The visible devastation is actually part of the park’s story now, as visitors can learn about dramatic changes from volcanic eruptions and climate change. The park is vast, thus hiking the Cinder Cone and checking out the Sulphur Works in the same day might be too much. But the spectacle of seeing the hydrothermal elements up close might make the drive worth it.

We hiked the Cinder Cone with our big group (our youngest hiker just turned 5), took a post-hike dip in Butte Lake, paddled Manzanita Lake, fished in Hat Creek, and checked out many more areas along the park road over our four days in the park. It was all breathtaking, even in the sudden hail.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

Summer is here. What’s your favorite part of the season in California?

Email us at CAtoday@nytimes.com with your stories, memories or recommendations.

And before you go, some good news

For the past 40 years, five friends have taken a group photo at the same lake along California’s border with Oregon.

The friends first met as teenagers at Santa Barbara High School and took their first picture together at Copco Lake in 1982. Since then, they have recreated the photo about every five years.