Even After Arizonans Voted for Abortion Rights, the State GOP Wants to Defund Clinics That Discuss It

Once again, anti-abortion lawmakers prove that the only thing they hate more than our bodily autonomy is the will of the electorate.

By Kylie Cheung | March 25, 2025 | 8:00am

Photo: Getty Images Abortion Politics

Even After Arizonans Voted for Abortion Rights, the State GOP Wants to Defund Clinics That Discuss It

Arizona’s journey to protect abortion access over the last year has been a nauseating roller coaster. In June, the state’s dormant, Civil War-era abortion ban almost took effect but was swiftly repealed by the legislature. In November, 62% of voters passed a ballot measure (Proposition 139) to enshrine a right to abortion in the state Constitution, leading to the repeal of the state’s 15-week ban. Now, Republicans are trying a new strategy to get rid of abortion: They want to defund any clinic or hospital that even discusses abortion.

Last week, the state Senate Government Committee advanced House Bill 2547, which would prohibit any health provider that receives funding from the state or any state agencies, and even cities, from “promoting” abortion—aka, even discussing it with patients. Health providers could be shut down for non-compliance, which reproductive rights groups warn amounts to a gag rule. But this is at odds with the ballot measure that passed in November, which bars the legislature from passing bills that infringe on someone’s access to abortion, which included only a few narrow exceptions, like if the proposed legislation stems from evidence-based medicine.

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The GOP Senate Chairman Jake Hoffman laughably argued that HB 2547 is unrelated to the successful ballot measure. “There’s no reason to talk about 139 because this doesn’t deal with 139,” he said. “This deals with public funding.” Similarly, the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Lupe Diaz (R), denied it’s a ban. “(Abortion) is legal. In my mind, that’s now in the marketplace and we need to let the marketplace go ahead and afford it rather than state funds support it,” he said before the state Senate. “We don’t need state funds to support Planned Parenthood.”

Jodi Liggett, the founder of Arizona Center for Women’s Advancement, told the Arizona Mirror that the bill “will function effectively as a backdoor abortion ban,” and pointed out that, already, state and federal law prohibit Medicaid funding for most abortions. (I argue that state funding very much should cover abortion, as it should cover all health care, but I digress.) Instead, Liggett said, HB 2547 would shutter access to a full range of health services by shutting down clinics across the state. Pointing to her work at Arizona’s Camelback Family Planning, she explained: “The kind of services we provide, aside from abortion, that are funded through Medicaid for patients who have AHCCCS include STI testing, wellness exams, and basic essential reproductive health care. That is what would be defunded by this bill—not abortion, which is already not funded by the state.”

During the committee’s debate, Rep. Lauren Kuby (D) challenged Diaz over the bill’s language: “If a patient asks: ‘Where could I get an abortion in Maricopa County?’ is that promoting abortion?” she asked, according to the outlet. In response, Diaz argued that yes, it is, because most abortions are “for convenience” and not emergencies. I have to scoff at this because, frankly, every unwanted pregnancy is an emergency. Pregnancy under the most ideal circumstances is a brutal experience—but to Diaz, an unplanned pregnancy is a minor inconvenience and silly, vapid women frivolously get abortions like they do a new pair of shoes or a mani-pedi. As for his insinuation that emergency abortions are rarely needed, I would refer him to the dozens of patients who have come forward with stories and lawsuits alleging they were almost killed by being denied timely, emergency abortion care since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health; at least five women have died as a result of abortion bans, per ProPublica’s reporting.

“There’s a difference between promoting an abortion and then also saying that ‘You need medical attention.’ I think that’s totally different,” Diaz, who is very much not a doctor or public health expert, said. “What you’re looking at is a healthy fetus, a healthy baby inside the womb, and the doctor can’t say, ‘Well, I recommend that you go and get an abortion because you’re suffering psychologically.’”

This level of stupidity and misogyny should be disqualifying for someone to hold office but, unfortunately, we’re living through a political era where it seems more like a requirement. In fact, on the federal level, reproductive rights advocates say they expect the Trump administration to reinstate a policy from his first term known as the domestic gag rule, which stripped health providers of federal funding if they even offered information about abortion.

At the same time that Arizona Republicans advanced HB 2547 out of committee to receive a full vote from the legislature, they also passed HB 2439, a bill to add anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to state websites. These centers, known as CPCS, usually have pregnancy tests or ultrasounds, but they don’t offer actual health services—they exist to push anti-abortion propaganda to try and convince abortion seekers not to have abortions or to delay their care long enough that it’s too late for them to schedule an abortion at an actual clinic.

Across the country, Republicans in states that have passed abortion rights amendments are disregarding the will of the people and continuing to propose extreme anti-abortion legislation. “This bill strong-arms doctors into withholding care, forcing them to let women die, robbing families of wives, daughters and mothers,” Dr. Sheena Galhotra, an Arizona-based OBGYN, told the Mirror of HB 2547. “If passed, this would effectively defund hospitals.”