- The Arizona Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday, April 30, that the State's ban on funding medically necessary abortions in its Medicaid program violates protections afforded by the Arizona Constitution. The Center for Reproductive Rights will argue that the ban, which was upheld by the Arizona Court of Appeals last year, violates women’s right to privacy and to equal treatment under the law.
"The State is selectively excluding women who medically require abortions in order to protect their health from the very program designed to meet the health needs of Arizona's indigent citizens," said Bebe Anderson, a staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents the plaintiffs. "The State’s abortion funding ban puts the health of many women at risk as these women struggle, sometimes unsuccessfully, to find the means to pay for medically necessary health care."
Women suffering from such diseases as Grave’s Disease, epilepsy, lupus, and congenital heart disease are harmed by this funding ban, because continuing their pregnancy may imperil their health. Other women are harmed due to their need to take medications or receive treatments, such as chemotherapy, which pose a risk to the fetus; continuation of their pregnancy forces them to forego that treatment, thus causing their health to deteriorate.
In May 2000, trial court Judge Kenneth L. Fields, in agreement with the Center for Reproductive Rights’ position, wrote, "[w]hile the State is not required under its Constitution to fund health care for the poor, once it does so, it cannot require [indigent women for whom an abortion is medically necessary] to give up fundamental State constitutional rights in order to receive public funds for health care." The Court of Appeals ruled to the contrary in August 2001, on the basis that only poverty -- not the State -- is interfering with women's ability to obtain abortions. That court disregarded the real impact the ban has on Medicaid-eligible women, who cannot afford to obtain needed medical care without State assistance.
Courts in almost three quarters of the states to have considered such challenges, including New Mexico, have struck down similar funding bans as violating their own independent state constitutions.
Plaintiffs in Simat Corp., d/b/a Abortion Services of Phoenix v. Hull, which include Arizona clinics and doctors, are represented by Bebe Anderson and Hillary Schwab of the Center for Reproductive Rights, along with cooperating counsel Chris LaVoy and Mark Chernoff of LaVoy & Chernoff, P.C. in Phoenix.
