Abortion in California is legal up to the point of fetal viability. In 2022, 67% of California voters approved Proposition 1, which amended the Constitution of California to explicitly protect the right to abortion and contraception.

In response to a report by NARAL that found crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) providing misleading and inaccurate information to pregnant women, the California Legislature passed the Reproductive FACT (Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency) Act (AB-755), which required CPCs to post visible notices that other options for pregnancy, including abortion, are available from state-sponsored clinics. It also mandated that unlicensed centers post notice of their unlicensed status. The centers, typically run by Christian non-profit groups, challenged the act on the basis that it violated their right free speech. The law was subsequently struck down as unconstitutional in a 5–4 decision along ideological lines by the U.S. Supreme Court. California allows certain qualified non-physician health professionals, such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and certified nurse midwives, to do first-trimester aspiration abortions, and to prescribe drugs for medical abortions. There have been a number of abortion-related cases before the California Supreme Court, the California Courts of Appeal, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California since 1969.

There have been several deaths in California as a result of illegal abortions, including 35 in 1966 and 1967. California uses its own funds to cover all "medically necessary" abortions sought by low-income women under Medicaid. 88,466 were state-funded in 2010.

California has an active abortion rights activist community. Society for Human Abortion was founded in 1963 in San Francisco. People in California participated in #StopTheBans protested in May 2019, including at protests in San Francisco and Los Angeles. There is also an active anti-abortion rights community. Singer Pat Boone announced he recorded a song titled "Sixteen Thousand Faces" about the Los Angeles fetus disposal scandal in May 1985. The first Walk for Life was held on January 22, 2005. A number of acts of anti-abortion rights violence have also taken place in the state, including an attempted bombing in July 1987, fires at clinics in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and acts of violence in San Francisco in February 1995, Modesto in March 2003, and Costa Mesa in March 2022.

On May 31, 2019, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation explaining California's abortion laws, and encouraged women from states seeking to restrict a woman's ability to get an abortion to come to California for an abortion if she needs one. The statement read in part, "California will continue to uphold women's equality and liberty by protecting their reproductive freedom, educating Californians about their rights to reproductive freedom, welcoming women to California to fully exercise their reproductive rights, and acting as a model for other states that want to ensure full reproductive freedom for women."

In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother, given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens. By 1950, the state legislature would pass a law stating that a woman who had an abortion, or actively sought to have an abortion, regardless of whether she went through with it, were guilty of a criminal offense.

An abortion ban was in place by 1900, and by 1950, it was a criminal offense for a woman to have an abortion. In 1962, the American Law Institute published their model penal code, as it applied to abortions, with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion, and California adopted a version of this code. In 2002, the California State Legislature passed a law guaranteeing women the right to have an abortion "prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman".

In 1962, the American Law Institute published their model penal code, as it applied to abortions, with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion: "If ... there is substantial risk that the continuance of the pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother, or that the child would be born with grave physical or mental defect, or that the pregnancy resulted from rape, incest, or other felonious intercourse." In 1967, the California State Legislature adopted a form of this into law, but did not allow an exception for birth defects. Alaska, Hawaii, California, and New York were the only four states that made abortion legal between 1967 and 1970 that did not require a reason to request an abortion. California amended its abortion law in 1967 to address the disconnect between legal and medical justifications for therapeutic exceptions. This change made them one of the most progressive states in the country when it came to abortion rights. The bill was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan, after the legislature removed as a reason for legal abortion that a fetus had severe physical deformities. State law in 1971 required that any woman getting a legal abortion in the state needed to be a resident for some specific period between 30 and 90 days.