The Quickie: Arizona Set to Lose Abortion Access After Supreme Court Decision

Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.

In today’s Quickie: Arizona is about to lose abortion access and a new op-ed on abortion ban “exceptions”.

ARIZONA SET TO LOSE ABORTION ACCESS AFTER SUPREME COURT DECISION: Yesterday, the Arizona Supreme Court declared that a total abortion ban dating from the Civil War can be enforced. While providers like Planned Parenthood Arizona still will be able to serve abortion patients for several more weeks, the state will soon lose access to abortion except in the most limited circumstances. 

News of the court’s decision had an immediate effect on health care providers and their patients. Planned Parenthood Arizona chief medical officer Dr. Jill Gibson told ABC News Live that it feels “a lot like the days after the Dobbs decision.” As she saw patients yesterday, they were asking her “how could this possibly be that legislators and politicians are determining whether or not they can have this healthcare procedure.” 

Dr. Gibson shared that the abortion ban’s criminalization provisions not only will stop physicians from providing abortion, but also deter trainees from coming to Arizona as well. But Dr. Gibson isn’t giving up hope: “I plan to follow the law, but what I can say I will absolutely never stop fighting until we can restore the right to bodily autonomy in this state and across the country,” she said.

Read more from Planned Parenthood Federation of America here.

ABORTION BAN “RAPE EXCEPTIONS” DON’T WORK: In a new op-ed for STAT News, Dr. Samuel Dickman, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of Montana, details how so-called “rape exceptions” in abortion bans don’t work in the current political landscape and don’t offer any support to survivors of sexual assault. Dr. Dickman shares “... the vast majority of survivors never report being raped — because doing so would put them at greater risk of violence from their abuser, because they don’t trust the police, or because rape is so stigmatized they don’t feel comfortable discussing it.” 

He goes on to explain even if the survivor files a report, which leaves them vulnerable to being retraumatized, finding care is extremely difficult. Dr. Dickman has seen patients from Idaho, a state with “rape exceptions”, who were told to seek care out-of-state. He concludes, “Banning health care has consequences, and survivors of sexual violence are paying too high a price.”

Read the full op-ed here