Arizona Ruling on Abortion
Reproductive rights severely restricted in yet another state.
As you may have already heard, the Arizona State Supreme Court is allowing a 160 year old abortion ban to take effect. The law was written 48 years before Arizona even became a state, and 56 years before women received the right to vote.
Having led Planned Parenthood in Arizona for 23 years and collaborated with the state’s numerous independent abortion healthcare providers, I have a bird’s eye view of the harm this ruling is about to unleash.
First and most important, 1,000 Arizonans every month are going to be forced to travel to obtain critical healthcare that until now was available in their own communities. Some simply can't make the journey due to financial barriers or the inability to get child care or time off of work. Children will be born to families who can’t care for them despite their heartfelt best efforts.
The ban will shut down innovative - and increasingly rare - abortion training programs in Arizona.
Entire medical practices will close. Abortion-providing healthcare teams including physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses and counselors, deliver expert care learned over years of professional experience. When the care they provide is criminalized, they will move to where they can use their skills and many won’t come back.
How did Arizona get here?
The original 1864 abortion ban had not been in effect since 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v Wade, recognizing a right to abortion healthcare. In the 50 years since, abortion was legal in Arizona up until fetal viability (generally about 22-24-weeks of pregnancy).
In 2022, the Arizona legislature sought to chip away at Roe by adopting a new law that capped access to abortion at 15-weeks of pregnancy. The question since Roe was overturned has been which abortion ban would become the law in Arizona: the 1864 complete ban or the 2022 15-week ban?
Yesterday the Arizona State Supreme Court ruled that the 2022 law was only intended to be in effect as long as Roe v Wade was the law of the land. The law contends that when, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe, the Arizona 15-week law became obsolete and the 1864 complete ban once again came into effect.
A legislative effort to avert this disaster is unlikely: this afternoon, 24 hours after the ruling, anti-abortion Republican leaders of the State House and Senate stalled bills that would have repealed the 1864 ban. According to Axios reporting, the Republican House Speaker opposed a vote to repeal the ban, ensuring it would not get to the floor.
What does this mean for women and girls, and their ability to chart their own lives?
With this news out of Arizona and last week's ruling regarding a six-week abortion ban in Florida, 25.5 million women in 18 states have lost or are about to lose access to reproductive healthcare and the ability to decide whether to be pregnant. That is almost 4 out of 10 women in the country.
Abortion rights coalitions in four of these states are circulating petitions to get proposals to protect the right to abortion healthcare on the November 2024 ballot: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida and Missouri.
But even if these ballot measures succeed, as they have in Michigan and Ohio, the opponents of women’s equality and autonomy have made it abundantly clear that they are not taking no for an answer.
This is why at Project 50, we are committed to electing candidates who support reproductive rights, no matter their party. For example, in South Carolina, Project 50 supports the re-election of the five "Sister Senators" - 3 Republicans, 1 Democrat, and 1 Independent - who came together during a 2-day filibuster to prevent a near total abortion ban in their state. It is leaders like these who we need to lift up and support - not legislators who would let a Civil War era law erase the basic human rights of half the population. Please consider supporting this crucial work HERE.
Project 50 is supporting and encouraging the growth of reproductive rights-focused political organizations in every state. Although the recent victory of an abortion rights supporter in an Alabama legislative election is encouraging, it is going to take many such victories, in every state, year after year, to restore the safety, opportunity and dignity of every woman and girl in America.
We are grateful for your partnership in this work.
Yours in solidarity,
Bryan Howard
Paid for by Project 50 (project50.net) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.