Planned Parenthood Arizona to resume medication abortion services in Flagstaff as residents protest Arizona Supreme Court decision

PPAZ had already been planning to resume services at the clinic before the Arizona Supreme Court’s April 9 ruling allowing enforcement of an 1864 near-total ban on abortion.

ARS 13-3063 states that “a person who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than two years nor more than five years.”

The reason PPAZ is still able to provide abortion services in Flagstaff despite the recent decision is that this 1864 ban is not currently being enforced. 

An October 2022 order from the Maricopa County Superior Court means the ban cannot be enforced until 45 days after the state Supreme Court issues a mandate for the case -- which is expected no sooner than about two weeks after the April 9 decision.

PPAZ is planning to continue offering its abortion services across the state until then.

"We will absolutely not stand down, we will continue to expand, we will continue to provide abortions for everybody until the last moment that it is absolutely feasible,” said Dr. Jill Gibson, PPAZ's chief medical officer.

Gibson added: "There was just no way that we would not continue to provide for however many days we have left to provide. ... Regardless of whether or not we have the 60 days that we assume we’ll have to continue providing abortion in this state ... there’s never enough time to meet the needs of people who are seeking abortion services. So whatever we can do, for the short period of time that we can, we are committed to do.”

Abortion up to 15 weeks of pregnancy is currently legal in Arizona, with exceptions to save the pregnant woman's life or to prevent serious risk to their physical health. Those younger than 18 need either permission from a legal guardian or a judicial bypass to get an abortion.

The Flagstaff Health Center will be resuming its medication abortion line  Monday to provide abortion pills to patients at 11 weeks of gestation or fewer, as well as several related services. Arizona requires a pregnancy confirmation visit and physician abortion counseling visit before a patient can receive an abortion, both of which PPAZ will be offering in Flagstaff. It will also offer follow-up visits for its patients. 

To start, Gibson said the clinic will see about 20 patients for abortion-related services a day, expanding capacity as it continues. She said on Friday afternoon that the clinic had already booked all of its pre-appointment consultations and pregnancy confirmation visits for Monday, its first day with the resumed services. It also had “several” of its medication abortion appointments filled for the day. 

The clinic is planning to provide medication abortion services at least two days a month, staffed by two physicians from the Flagstaff area and Gibson, who will be traveling to the city to support them and allow for additional availability of service. This is in addition to the other services the clinic already provides.

Planned Parenthood’s centers in Phoenix and Tucson are currently providing abortion services one or two days a week. Before last week’s decision, the plan had been to increase frequency gradually in Flagstaff to one day a week as well, though Gibson expects they would not now have the time to do so before the ban goes into effect.

She said she expected there would be high demand for abortion services at the Flagstaff Health Center, as PPAZ’s other Arizona locations have been seeing patients traveling from northern Arizona and hearing of others who received care in California or Nevada.

PPAZ stopped providing abortion care in Arizona, including at its Flagstaff location, after the Dobbs decision in June 2022. It has other Arizona locations, in Phoenix and Tucson that have already resumed their abortion services. 

The Abortion Fund of Arizona’s website lists a total of five abortion providers in Arizona other than the PPAZ locations — four in Phoenix and two in Tucson. PPAZ has seven health centers in the state (five in the Phoenix area and one each in Flagstaff and Tucson).

Abortion services resumed at PPAZ's Tempe and Tucson centers in October of 2022, after the organization received clarity around Arizona's abortion law. Staffing shortages then meant that services were paused in Tempe in December of 2022, instead resuming in the Glendale health center. PPAZ then resumed abortion care in Tempe on March 5 of this year.

Since the Dobbs decision, Flagstaff and other northern Arizona residents have needed to travel to Phoenix, Tucson or another state to receive abortion services. Once the Flagstaff Health Center resumes medication abortion services, it will be the only northern Arizona location offering abortions.

“Part of our resolution to bring abortion services back to Flagstaff is that we recognize that Flagstaff supports rural Indigenous communities, and we recognize that these are communities that are already facing the impacts of being in a healthcare desert,” Gibson said. “We know those communities are also those that are going to be the most heavily affected by not having access to abortion."

PPAZ has been working to resume its Flagstaff abortion services since the Dobbs decision, she said, though this has been delayed by legal uncertainty and staffing shortages caused by providers leaving Arizona.

“In the days after the Dobbs decision, we were just struggling to have legal clarity about where we could provide abortion anywhere in the state,” she said. “ ... What we saw after the Dobbs decision was that a lot of our staff weren’t able to stay in the state and provide abortion care, and so they left. They went to California, they went to Nevada, and in that vacuum we had to essentially rebuild our staff that’s able to provide this service.”

While Gibson said the recent decision from the Arizona Supreme Court was likely to add to these issues, she also said “it has also brought together and galvanized a whole collection of people and really strengthened our resolve.”

If abortion becomes legal again in Arizona, Gibson said, the Flagstaff clinic will resume its abortion services, and begin its original plan to expand them to weekly. Should the ban go into effect, she also said they planned to continue supporting those needing abortions in Flagstaff through a patient navigator program created in response to the Dobbs decision.

“We will continue to see patients that are needing abortion services and work very hard to get them out of state so that they can get the essential healthcare that they need,” she said.

PPAZ also plans to keep the Flagstaff clinic open to provide its other services once the ban is in effect.

“It's infuriating that we’ve gotten this close," Gibson said, "and made this much progress on our commitment to bring this service back to have the Arizona Supreme Court, with the knowledge and the context of what happens to pregnant people who can't access abortions, still strike down the right to access an essential healthcare service. ... We also remain resolute in our commitment to all of the people of Arizona."

Flagstaff protest

Part of the response in northern Arizona to last week's decision could be seen in Flagstaff Friday evening, as Northern Arizona University (NAU) students marched from campus to City Hall, where they joined other Flagstaff residents in a protest led by the Flagstaff Abortion Alliance (FAA).