AN ORDINANCE relating to the Seattle Criminal Code, adding a new Chapter 12A.32 to the Seattle Municipal Code; and amending Section 12A.20.060 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
Agenda Item to Council Bill 120375 An ordinance relating to the Seattle Criminal Code adding a new chapter 12 .8.32 to the Seattle Missile Code and amending Section 12 .8.20.06 out of the Seattle Municipal Code. Thank you. A move to pass Council Bill 120375 to bring this item before us. Is there a second? Thank you. It has been moved and seconded to pass the bill. Councilmembers want as the sponsor of this bill. Would you like to share opening and closing remarks with others joining in between? Yes. Thank you, Jordan Strauss. This is legislation from my office to make Seattle a sanctuary for women and pregnant people and their doctors and other care providers facing persecution for seeking and performing abortions. Laws violating basic bodily autonomy and criminalizing reproductive health care are fundamentally unjust, and we should not allow Seattle to be complicit. This bill prohibits Seattle police from arresting people, either patients or providers, based on outstanding warrants or otherwise aiding investigations related to and abortion laws around the country. Let anyone burdened by draconian anti-abortion laws come to Seattle without fear of prosecution. This will unfortunately not make unjust arrest warrants go away. That would require building of powerful women's rights and LGBTQ rights movement to win back the right to bodily autonomy nationwide. But the legislation will mean that people with unjust arrest warrants can live in Seattle without being extradited to whatever state is attempting to prosecute them. This is decisive because the police of other states and cities do not have the power to arrest outside their jurisdiction. And if Seattle police, the county sheriff and Washington state patrol refused to do those arrests based on anti-abortion laws, there is no law enforcement agency left to arrest. If this legislation passes in Seattle alone, it will have a vital impact on protecting many women in a particular people. However, if bringing it here can help it spread to other cities and states, the impact could be truly profound. If half the states in the nation refuse to extradite people under investigation for breaking abortion laws in the other half of the states, those laws will become extremely difficult to enforce. Like all this is already being conducted by elected representatives in several cities and counties interested in similar legislation. Thank you to Chicago Alderman Biden, Sergio Lopez and Minneapolis City Council member Robin Wamsley, both members like me of the Democratic Socialists of America who planned to push for similar legislation in their respective cities. Thank you. Especially to Heidi. Wayne White, Light, district supervisor in Dane County, Wisconsin, who met with me and other activists yesterday and who wrote to the Seattle City Council in strong support of our legislation. As Supervisor Greg Lightner said, quote, The immediate impact is severe and sickening in my state where we had an abortion ban on the books from 1849. The abortion ban makes it a felony crime to provide an abortion unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or other health issues of the parent. After all, for 50 years, the 173 year old law was not enforced after the dogs decision was announced. Abortion providers stop scheduling appointments in Wisconsin. Now pregnant persons in the stands need to find a way to get an abortion provider in a state where they can still access an abortion. Like Illinois or Minnesota, they have to line up the forms, not just for the procedure or pills, but arrange transportation and lodging. And they have to wait likely much longer to get the care they need. They have to worry that our state legislature will enact even more draconian restrictions on their right to pursue the health care they need in other places. I plan to pursue legislation to prohibit county resources from being used to report, investigate or prosecute any person for violating the 1849 abortion ban. I write to let you know that your commitment to protecting those providing and seeking abortion care is incredibly important to me. It's important to me as a woman who has been pregnant four times but only birthed one child. It's important to me as a fellow local elected official, working with other legislators, activists, public health officials and health care providers to figure out how to do everything in our power to push back against the horrifying 1849 abortion ban in a country which no longer recognizes the constitutional right to access an abortion. Please vote yes on this bill and reject any attempts to watering down like some of what is found in Amendment B. As policymakers, we have a responsibility to use our power to protect human rights when we choose to change the words in our policy to , quote unquote, request something to do, quote unquote requiring it. We are failing the people who elected us. Anyone can request something of a government body. Legislative bodies like your council can require it. Watering down this bill would render it virtually meaningless. Pregnant people and people with uteruses in my state and in yours need more than grandstanding. They need real legislation which will protect them. End quote. Thank you, supervisor regulator. I do want to also clarify that this legislation is very different than current state laws such as House Bill 1851 and legal opinions which protect people who perform or have an abortion in Seattle, including if a pregnant person lives in another state and comes to Seattle to have an abortion. Because their. State ban stuff. Those laws are good to have, but they do not protect people who perform or have an abortion in a state where they have been banned in, which requires breaking those unjust laws and consequently they need refuge. This is what this legislation will address. If people break the unjust, unfair abortion laws in their own state and believe they will be caught. They can come to Seattle and be protected from prosecution. After I announced this legislation at a press conference, Governor Inslee issued an executive order in May. Harold Brett pledged at a press conference to temporarily instruct state and city police not to aid in those out-of-state abortion related investigations. However, those executive orders are significantly weaker than those legislation because they make no mention of out-of-state arrest warrants. They're also no substitute for actually codifying these protections in the law, which our legislation will do. The overturning of ROE shows the importance of codifying human rights into law. I want to thank Jasmine Morrow from City Council Center staff for all the help she provided in drafting this bill. And thank you to central staff member and Gorman for continuing the work on the bill. Thank you to the over 5500 people who signed the public petition from my office in support of this legislation. Special thanks. Go to the rank and file union members who have supported this and local unions have endorsed the legislation. UAW 4121 who represent thousands of registered workers. The Resident and Fellow Physicians Union Northwest who represent physicians and residents of the University of Washington Hospital, American Federation of Government Employees, Local 3197 representing the healthcare workers of the Seattle Veterans Administration. Thank you to real change through this town navigator Diamond Action Group up and the Puget Sound Mobilization for Reproductive Justice who have publicly supported this legislation and Socialist Alternative my organization whose members have been doubling almost daily every week across the city and gathering thousands of petition signatures. Finally, my office has prepared an amendment amendment to this bill, which I will move after concluding these introductory remarks and with the permission of the Council President Pro Tem. The amendment makes some small technical edits and removes a line in order to make the bill better reflect its original intent. The line deleted had said code provided by a licensed healthcare provider operating within the scope of their practice, unquote, when describing the abortion related arrest warrants and investigations that Seattle police would not be. The reality is, states that have provided or passed draconian abortion laws also make it impossible to be licensed to provide reproductive health care. And as a result, people find other illegal ways they are forced to find other legal ways to do the same thing. Thousands will find their own solution to unwanted pregnancies because they will be forced to do so. We will order the abortion bill online or get it from a friend by limiting the protections in this bill to licensed healthcare providers operating within the scope of their practice. It would have inadvertently undercut the impact of the bill. So this amendment corrects that. As I said in the council briefing yesterday, this amendment aligns the bill's language to its original intent and is consistent with how I have been publicly describing the bill. I fully agree with the dozens of working people who spoke today during public comment, including the opposition to any amendments that would weaken the legislation. I want to make it clear to all working people that this amendment I'm moving also is not an amendment that will weaken the legislation but actually make sure that the intent of the legislation is fulfilled. So I urge Council members to support this legislation, including Amendment eight and Council. Would you like to move your amendment? Yes, thank you. Council President Jordan Strauss I move amendment a to council bill 120375. Second, it has been moot. It has been moved in seconding to amend Council Bill 120375. Councilmember Swan, I know you've addressed the amendment already. Any further remarks on the amendment? Nothing for me unless any questions. Fantastic colleagues. Any questions? Seeing no questions. I had just been moved when the clip was called around the amendment. Councilmember Nelson. I. Councilmember Peterson I council members want. Yes. Councilmember Herbold. Yes. Councilmember Lewis. Yes. Council President Pro Tem Strauss. Yes. Six in favor and unopposed. Thank you. The Motion Kings and the amendment is adopted. Councilman or so on. Any clue? I know you spoke very well to the bill in the amendment. Anything else? I guess let me call and colleagues, any comments on the bill? Colleagues. Councilmember Herman. Thank you so much. Just a couple very quick words. I'm very pleased to vote in support of this legislation, which provides important safeguards to ensure that people seeking abortion here are protected from an attempt to stop or prosecute them. I do want to say for the record that I publicly stated my support for this legislation at last week's full council meeting, and I'm frustrated that an email was sent out from the sponsors office incorrectly claiming that no council member had done so. I've since received a significant amount of advocacy. I welcome the advocacy but urged me to take a vote that I had already committed to taking more broadly on the substance of the bill and the substance of the issue. Ensuring safety and full access to reproductive health care is an urgent and very, very important priority for me. I've created sort of a track record on on some of these issues by first adding language to the original resolution that the Council passed, sponsored by by council members to want. But focusing on the immediate investment that the Northwest Abortion Access Fund was was needing to receive, which the Mayor has called that that has answered that call. And the council is now poised to approve $250,000 for this purpose this year, consistent with that amendment. I've met regularly with advocates and providers on the front lines of abortion, access to understanding their ongoing needs and emerging priorities. I had a briefing this morning from Public Health on how they're working to protect abortion access and what more we can do here at the city council. Had that rethink in my public committee this morning. I'm also co-sponsoring two bills with Councilmember Morales to protect pregnant people who are seeking abortion here, which the council will consider on August 9th. I think these are important, significant pieces of legislation. I don't think it's appropriate to minimize their importance. One bill is to create a protected status of of people seeking abortion. The other relates specifically to the actions that others may take towards people seeking comprehensive reproductive services. And I'm really looking forward to bringing those bills before the full council. They have already passed the committee where they were heard. And then I'm really looking forward to working to find ways to expand abortion access and protect what can only be called medical refugees, people who are coming here and cannot receive basic health care in their home states so that we can make sure that people understand the the the places here in Washington State where they can receive those those services, because it's very confusing right now with some of the deceptive practices that some clinics are engaged in and the fact that we have hospital mergers with with hospitals that simply don't provide those services services. Again, more important work that is yet to be done in closing. Again, I support this bill and I thank members to want to bring it forward. No, thank you. Other colleagues. Any questions? Comments. Seeing none. Councilmember Swanton, final words passed quickly. Yeah, I appreciate councilmember horrible support for this bill and I hope all councilmembers will vote yes on it. And this fall, the people's budget movement will also be bringing forward a budget amendment to fund free abortions in Seattle, both for residents and those escaping rightwing and abortion laws in their own states. That would be another way that Seattle and hopefully other states as cities in Washington state and other states as well, can work to make these deeply unjust and rising laws difficult to enforce. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Will the court please call the roll and the passage of the bill as amended? Council Member Nelson I. She said, I. I said, I. Don't. Think you. Councilmember Peterson? Yes. Councilmember silence. Yes. Councilmember Herbold. Yes. Councilmember Lewis. Yes. I said yes. Thank you. Council President Pro Tem Strauss. Yes. Sits in favor and unopposed. That's a press release now. Huh? The bill passes as amended, the chair will sign it with a clear. Please fix my signature to the legislation on my behalf. Next time. Number three will the clerk please read item three into the record? I am very excited about this. Agenda Item three Report of the Sustainability and Riches Rights Committee. A point nine excuse me. 02268. The appointment of Justine Justine Bell as Director of the Office of Sustainability and Environment. The Committee recommends the Council confirm the appointment.