Andy Rivas, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, said he was not surprised by the veto and that students "were not pushing for passage" of the bill. Universities "did not want the responsibility of providing abortion pills to students," he said.
Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United For Life, said at the time of Brown's veto that he had "made California safer for women, and college campuses safer for their unborn children."
"Governor Brown recognized that in a state where Medicaid already pays for elective abortions, there is no issue of access, since, as he said yesterday, 'the average distance to abortion providers in campus communities varies from 5 to 7 miles, not an unreasonable distance,'" Foster said last September.
Foster also pointed out that "college health clinics are not equipped to handle the very serious risks of chemical abortion drugs," which can include heavy vaginal bleeding and infection.
Medical abortions involve the taking of two pills - the first pill, mifepristone, blocks progesterone, which is essential for maintaining the health of the fetus. The second pill, misoprostol, is taken 24 hours after mifepristone and works to induce contractions in order to expel the fetus.
Medication abortions make up about one third of all abortions performed in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration reports that 22 deaths have been associated with the use of abortion pills in the US as of the end of 2017.