Arizona Has a Long Way to Go in Ensuring Reproductive Rights: An Op-Ed
Over the last few months, there has been a wave of legislation in states like Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia aimed at restricting abortion rights. Kentucky’s last abortion clinic remains open today but now Missouri’s last clinic is in danger of losing its license for the procedure.
The recent anti-abortion laws are at odds with public opinion on the issue. As Gallup’s Lydia Saad writes, a significant majority of Americans support both “protecting abortion rights when pregnancy endangers a woman’s life” and “keeping abortion legal when pregnancy is caused by rape or incest.” However, this year’s new laws would often make abortion a crime in such circumstances.
Passing legislation like this may seem impossible in Arizona, but it is more likely than it seems. Just two weeks ago, an anti-abortion bill introduced at the Arizona State Legislature. #HB2759 would have taken over two million in taxpayer money to limit women’s choice by promoting crisis pregnancy centers, which spread lies about the harms of abortions to vulnerable women. Additionally, if Roe v Wade is overturned, Arizona will have a restrictive abortion law in place that was never overturned because Roe was passed. In fact, just this April, Planned Parenthood of Arizona has filed a sweeping lawsuit against the state seeking to overturn laws that it argues are designed block women’s access to a legal medical procedure.
Currently, a woman in Arizona must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage her from having an abortion, and then wait 24 hours before the procedure is provided. Counseling must be provided in person and must take place before the waiting period begins, thereby necessitating two trips to the facility. The Planned Parenthood lawsuit targets so-called”TRAP laws” — or Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers — that reproductive-rights groups say make it difficult or impossible for women to access abortion, especially those who live the state’s vast rural areas.
This brings about the question: what is the real way to ensure reproductive health and safety for people with uteruses in Arizona? It doesn’t start with banning abortion or heavily restricting these medical procedures. It starts with sex education, affordable access to birth control, funding Planned Parenthood and other reproductive rights organizations, and ending the cultural stigma and taboo of addressing all these issues.
Sex education in Arizona’s public and charter schools is lacking, especially in rural and indigenous areas across the state. In the last few years, Arizona’s legislature has struck down SB1020, which would allow comprehensive sex ed in high school and middle school and also requires education on effective contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted disease. They also struck down HB2410 which would add discussions of consent into sex ed curriculums. This and underfunding of local women’s health measures has resulted in high teen pregnancy rates, more so in low-income rural areas than urban, and more so affecting indigenous and Latinx folks than white or Asian populations. To truly limit unwanted pregnancies, our state must start by providing accessible sex education to students, and letting them know their options about birth control as well. Placing restrictions on abortion simply harms vulnerable women, disproportionately women of color, and it is not the answer.
Another way to prevent unwanted pregnancies is to provide accessible, affordable birth control to all women. Currently, birth control pills and condoms are priced on a sliding scale at local Planned Parenthood, and are often not covered in health insurance policies at other healthcare providers’ locations. Having these methods of birth control insured for adults and available at high schools and colleges for younger people is another way to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Restricting abortion, on the contrary, only harms women in difficult positions.
A final method to decrease the amount of women who need to terminate pregnancies is ending the cultural stigma of discussing heavy issues of sexual health. For example, after Arizona repealed the No Promo Homo Law, a decades-old law that prevented LGBTQ students from receiving medically accurate information in health education classes at school, LGBTQ students reported feeling more confident about their health decisions. Legally and socially, people need to be able to discuss reproductive health and options publicly without feeling societal stigma around their decisions.
Louisiana will not be the last state to attempt to challenge Roe. Similar measures have been proposed in several more states. Advocates across the state are currently lobbying and fighting to make sure Arizona isn’t the next state. But even if we don’t ban abortion, our state still has a long way to go in ensuring reproductive health and safety for all its residents.
