Ariz. Planned Parenthood resumes abortion services
PHOENIX – Planned Parenthood Arizona is resuming abortions in northern Arizona, even as a near-total ban is set to take effect.
The organization’s Flagstaff clinic has started accepting appointments for medication abortions, Planned Parenthood Arizona announced Monday. More than half of abortions in the U.S. are done via medication.
Planned Parenthood leaders say they plan to continue offering abortion care in Arizona “for as long as we possibly and lawfully can.”
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled April 9 to uphold an 1864 abortion ban. However, it stayed enforcement for 14 days to allow legal challenges that had not yet been heard, including to the constitutionality of the law.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which won the case before the state’s top court, said enforcement could begin in 14 days. But some opponents of abortion and providers including Planned Parenthood said abortion services would continue through May because a Maricopa County Superior Court order bars enforcement for 45 days after the Supreme Court’s ruling becomes final.
Northern Arizona has been an abortion desert, Planned Parenthood officials said in a news release on Monday, explaining why they are resuming abortion care there. Patients with the means to do so have had to travel hundreds of miles to access care.
“We will not be intimidated or silenced by anti-abortion extremists, because we know the overwhelming majority of Arizonans support the right to abortion,” said Angela Florez, Planned Parenthood Arizona president and CEO.
The Flagstaff clinic, one of the four Arizona clinics where Planned Parenthood historically has offered abortions, stopped providing abortion care in June 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
In the chaos and confusion following that decision, plus intermittent pauses in care due to legal actions, abortion providers throughout the state, including Planned Parenthood, lost staff members and had trouble hiring new ones. As a result, abortion care at Planned Parenthood’s Arizona clinics has been slow to ramp back up, though with the addition of Flagstaff, all four clinics are now once again offering abortion care. The other three clinics are in Tempe, Glendale and Tucson.
The number of abortions performed in Arizona fell from 13,998 in 2021 to 11,530 in 2022, a drop of about 18%, according to the most recent state abortion report from the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Providers and health experts say the April 9 ruling will increase maternal mortality and put more Arizonans at risk of staying in abusive relationships and becoming economically unstable. The people most at risk are in disenfranchised communities, including young people and people of color.
Exactly how much Arizona providers would be protected in the event they ignore the 1864 law altogether is not entirely clear. Some abortion providers have said they are consulting with lawyers to determine their next steps.