Patients, friends, and supporters:

We have been inundated with calls and questions about whether abortion is still legal and what all the recent news means. We believe that our role is to offer our patients the best and most up-to-date medical information available to help them to navigate our new normal. Moving forward, this space will be dedicated to doing just that.

That said, exploring the difficult medical challenges ahead will require some political context. To those seeking comment from us on the impact of recent events, the thoughts below represent our only political comment on this matter.

What just happened?

On 5/3/2022, Politico posted what they state is a first draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey—that is, declaring that the federal Constitution provides no protection for the right to decide whether to continue or to end a pregnancy. This decision would allow states to ban abortion outright.

What does this mean?

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Arizona will likely try to prohibit abortions completely. Anti-abortion legislators along with our Governor are already poised to enact laws preventing access to legal and safe abortions. We anticipate that it will be virtually impossible to have an abortion in Arizona before the year is out.

How did this happen?

The legislators and organizations that were charged with protecting our reproductive rights were outmaneuvered in several ways by their anti-abortion opponents:

• Anti-abortion forces have been packing the supreme court and federal judge vacancies for decades with judges who do not support access to legal and safe abortions.
• Anti-abortion forces are winning at the state level. When Roe is reversed, the final battleground will be state legislatures and governors. Anti-abortion forces have already done a great job at targeting and winning key gubernatorial and state legislative elections.
• Anti-abortion forces are more committed than you are (yes, we said it). They will not vote for a candidate who supports abortion even if they agree with that candidate on every other issue. Can you say the same about a candidate who is anti-abortion?

What can we do?

REGISTER TO VOTE HERE

Our Governor and state lawmakers are poised to end access to legal and safe abortion care. They will likely be successful in the short term. In the long term, making sure that the next Governor of our state supports abortion access is the quickest way to get our reproductive rights restored. But do not stop there. Electing a pro-abortion state legislature could allow abortion rights to be part of our state’s constitution so that we do not have to have this conversation again.

The most important most impactful thing that you can do at this moment is to say now what we should have been saying all along:

“I will not vote for anyone who does not support access to legal and safe abortions”

If this statement sounds radical to you now, I promise you that it will sound a lot less radical in the coming weeks. We encourage you to embrace this statement. Own it. Because doing so is the only way that your reproductive rights will be restored. Welcome to the fight. REGISTER TO VOTE HERE

The Staff of Choices Women’s Center