A protestor holds a sign at an April 14, 2024, protest in favor of reproductive rights and abortion access in Scottsdale. Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror
Arizona is facing a critical juncture in its fight for abortion rights. And as a local physician who’s dedicated nearly 30 years to providing reproductive and family planning care, I’m standing right on the front lines. Arizonans may soon have a chance to use their vote to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution.
If passed, our state would join seven others where voters have sided with abortion access via constitutional amendments since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. While not perfect, it would be a vast and life-saving improvement over our current 15-week ban. This ban places an incredibly difficult, and often insurmountable, barrier on a pregnant person’s ability to get the care they need out of state. Abortion bans disproportionally affect rural, low-income, young, and Black or Brown patients.
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I’ve witnessed the vital impact that abortion care can have on people’s lives. Since opening Camelback Family Planning in Phoenix, my practice has become the busiest independent clinic in the state — providing one-third of all abortions in Arizona between 2021 and 2022. Since the overturn of Roe, research shows nationally the number of abortions has increased, indicating that these authoritarian laws do not stop abortions from happening. Instead, banning abortion at any stage only increases the risk to people’s health and lives.
While Arizona saw a decline in abortions provided within the state, more people are traveling out of state to access the care they need, heading to nearby states like New Mexico and California.
Despite the necessity of these lifesaving services, extremist policymakers continue to push for arbitrary restrictions on abortion and have tried to circumvent democratic processes to do so. These restrictions are grossly misaligned with the needs and the values of Arizonans like myself — and the majority of Americans. Fifteen weeks is an arbitrary timeline that ignores scientific evidence and interferes with my duty and oath to provide care.
If these policymakers truly cared about supporting families, they should advocate for comprehensive social services that help people continue healthy pregnancies if they so choose and to raise the children they do have in safe communities. And those services include access to affordable health care, childcare, and economic support.
Abortion restrictions like ours disproportionately affect marginalized communities, including low-income families and people of color who often already face heightened barriers to care. Arizona’s maternal mortality rate more than quadrupled between 1999 and 2019, and the rate was even higher for Black and Indigenous women. If our current 15-week ban were to remain in place, it would only exacerbate barriers to care and the painful stories I hear from my patients every day.
What’s more, this ban undermines the ability of my clinic staff to support patients in making informed decisions about their health care. It also contributes to a growing public health crisis where women of all ages are denied autonomy over their own bodies.
For example, adolescents and young women are more likely to obtain abortions later in pregnancy because they may take longer to recognize they’re pregnant and connect with a provider. By that time, it may be too late for young people in Arizona to receive care in our state — an incredibly dehumanizing experience that can have long-term effects on their health outcomes.
Abortion is an essential health care service, and all abortion bans are harmful. Access to abortion allows people to make their own decisions about their bodies and their futures. No one should be forced to carry a pregnancy they don’t want, or to travel out of state and overcome enormous barriers to receive the care they need.
Arizonans have faced attacks on abortion access for decades. And we deserve policies that prioritize health and wellbeing over political ideology. We deserve to be listened to, and we deserve a future where reproductive health care is a right for everyone.
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