Erika Mach, the chief of external affairs for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, criticized Republican efforts to continue restricting abortion despite voters making the procedure a constitutional right during a March 11, 2025, press conference. Reproductive rights groups are banking on the legislature repealing the state’s remaining abortion restrictions before deciding to take the issue to the courts. Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror
A decisive majority of Arizona voters agreed to make abortion a constitutional right last year, but dozens of anti-abortion laws remain enshrined in state law and GOP lawmakers are forging ahead with new restrictions.
More than 60% of voters cast their ballots in favor of Proposition 139 in November, amending the Arizona Constitution to guarantee access to abortion up to, and in some cases beyond, the point of fetal viability.
The initiative’s passage paved the way for reproductive rights groups to challenge existing anti-abortion laws in the courts, and the first lawsuit was issued just weeks after the election against a 2022 law banning abortions after 15 weeks. Last week, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled that law conflicts with Prop. 139 and is therefore unconstitutional and unenforceable.
But despite the successful nullification of Arizona’s gestational ban and the already court-tested defense in Prop. 139, reproductive rights groups have yet to move against the dozens of other laws that restrict access to abortions. Instead, advocates appear to be pinning their hopes on a doomed legislative repeal effort spearheaded by Democrats and the longshot chance that Democrats in 2026 will win the governor’s race and control of both legislative chambers.
The legislative angle
In a Tuesday morning news conference, Erika Mach, the chief external affairs officer for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, criticized GOP lawmakers for ignoring the voter mandate issued in Prop. 139, and warned them there would be repercussions in the next election.
“We will use every tool we have to hold these lawmakers accountable, because you cannot ignore the people and not be held accountable,” she said. “So, hear us now: We will see you at the ballot box in 2026.”
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Undeterred by the overwhelming support of Prop. 139, Republican lawmakers are continuing to back restrictions on abortion. One bill would create new requirements for physicians to meet before they can prescribe an abortion pill to a patient, including conducting an in-person examination. Advocates are hoping to speed up the process by invalidating a state ban on telehealth and a prohibition on mailing the abortion pill, but mandating a visit to the clinic for a doctor to perform an ultrasound — which a woman seeking an abortion likely already had — would do the opposite.
Other proposals would prevent health care providers who accept Medicaid from even mentioning abortions to patients or risk forfeiting funding and would require that AHCCCS, the state’s Medicaid system, include information on its website to dissuade women from obtaining an abortion.
Democrats, by contrast, have introduced several proposals to repeal Arizona’s remaining anti-abortion laws, including the ban on using telehealth for abortion consultations, the prohibition on sending the abortion pill in the mail and a law threatening providers with a misdemeanor if they advertise their services.
But all of those bills are functionally dead, having failed to meet the legislative deadline for an initial hearing. Republicans chair all of the legislature’s committees and decide which bills get debated and which are ignored and never considered.
Still, while the Democratic bills are unlikely to make it to the governor’s desk, the hostile GOP proposals that do are destined to meet Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen. The Democrat is a vocal proponent of abortion access and has repeatedly rejected every anti-abortion bill that the Republican-controlled legislature has approved in the past.
Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, D-Tucson, who sponsored several of the repeal bills in the House, celebrated the passage of Prop. 139 but said that was just the beginning of the work to restore full access to abortion. She said it’s “absurd” that lawmakers are still being asked to consider new restrictions on abortion care and pointed to 2026 as critical for preventing their future success and ensuring that Democratic proposals see some movement.
“We cannot, must not stop until we have changed the power dynamic in the chambers of this legislature and we re-elect our governor and attorney general,” she said.
Where are the court challenges?
While repealing Arizona’s many anti-abortion laws in the state legislature would be a faster and less costly alternative than challenging them in court, reproductive rights groups haven’t launched a legal assault on the existing anti-abortion laws — and won’t say if or when they plan to.
On March 5, the same day that the 15-week law was struck down, Amanda Mollindo, a spokeswoman for the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the organization is in “continuous conversations with partners and providers” to determine which laws should be taken to court next. The ACLU was one of the key legal groups involved in the case to nullify Arizona’s gestational ban.
And on Tuesday, Mach acknowledged that dozens of anti-abortion laws remain on the books, but was also unable to say when — or if — lawsuits against them would be filed.
“We have over 40 restrictions still on the books,” she said. “This includes the 24-hour waiting period, reporting restrictions, telehealth ban, etc. — all unnecessary restrictions that just don’t allow ppl to gain full access to abortion care. So, we are evaluating and working with partners and the Planned Parenthood Federation.”
Mach said the top priorities for reproductive rights advocates to overturn would likely be the 24-hour waiting period and the telehealth ban, which she called “medically unnecessary.”
There would also be a strong interest, she said, in toppling the state’s onerous reporting requirements that Hobbs has sought to repeal. The data gathered from those requirements makes up an annual report on abortions in Arizona, but providers have said many of the questions, including around the reason for seeking an abortion, are invasive for patients.
Abortion rights advocates appear to be pinning their hopes on a doomed legislative repeal effort spearheaded by Democrats and the longshot chance that Democrats in 2026 will win the governor’s race and control of both legislative chambers.
In the meantime, providers at Planned Parenthood Arizona continue operating under all the existing restrictions, Mach said, even though Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has vowed never to take any doctor to court for performing an abortion.
In other states where voters have passed similar constitutional amendments making abortion a fundamental right, the efforts to eliminate decades worth of abortion restrictions hasn’t been immediate, either.
In November 2022, Michigan voters made abortion a constitutional right while living under a near-total ban from 1931. Democratic lawmakers later repealed the nearly 100-year-old law. Reproductive rights groups filed a lawsuit against a trio of anti-abortion laws in February 2023 that mandate a 24-hour waiting period, require doctors to give patients certain information before an abortion could be carried out, and bar nurses and physicians assistants from performing abortions. The case against those laws went to trial in February of this year, and has yet to reach a resolution.
And abortion providers in Missouri have only recently resumed services after a judge temporarily froze the state’s near-total ban and onerous licensing restrictions that caused clinics to close their doors. While Missouri voters agreed to protect abortion access last year, the case to overturn the state’s near-total ban that penalizes doctors with five to fifteen years in prison won’t go to trial until next year.
Gail Deady, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights who leads the organization’s legal efforts in Arizona, pointed out that Arizona has already seen lengthy abortion litigation.
A lawsuit from 2021 against a law passed that same year punishing doctors with a felony for performing abortions due to a fetus’ genetic abnormality is still unresolved. A federal judge reinstated the law in 2023 after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, but reproductive rights groups appealed the decision and in October 2023, and a federal appeals court gave them the go-ahead to revive the challenge against it.
Deady, too, called on lawmakers in Arizona to heed the voter mandate in Prop. 139 and repeal the many anti-abortion laws that remain. And while she wouldn’t say whether the Center for Reproductive Rights plans to take on any of those laws in court in the near future, she said the organization is prepared to do so if the legislature fails to act.
“If the legislature does not repeal those laws, then we at the Center for Reproductive Rights and our partners are going to be forced to consider litigation,” she said, adding: “We are not going to let these unconstitutional laws stand. The ball is in the legislature’s court right now.”
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