Arizona Abortion Law Goes Into Effect Following Settlement
(PRESS RELEASE) Today, a 1999 Arizona law regulating abortion providers went into effect. This comes after the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona ordered to lift a 10-year stay back in May blocking enforcement of the regulations. The Center for Reproductive Rights and the defendants, including Arizona county attorneys, negotiated for years and finally agreed to significant changes to the law. The result of that settlement along with a 2004 appellate court decision resulted in considerably less intrusive requirements for abortion providers.
Among other burdensome provisions, doctors and clinics would have been required to turn over complete medical records, risking the confidentiality of their patients. In addition, the state health department would have been allowed to conduct unannounced searches of abortion providers’ offices without a warrant, substantially intruding upon doctors’ practice of medicine.
Under the new regulations, the health department must have a warrant in order to obtain patient records with identifying information and the dates of inspections must be scheduled with abortion facilities ahead of time.
“We are pleased with the settlement which resulted in much more reasonable regulations and the protection of patient privacy,” said Bonnie Scott Jones, deputy director of the U.S. Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Originally, the law violated patient confidentiality and intruded upon the practice of medicine—in effect, imposing new burdens and costs on abortion providers without any justification.”
The Center originally challenged the law in 1999 in the case Tucson Women’s Clinic v. Eden. A district court struck down portions of the law in 2001, and in 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that decision and ruled that the abortion clinic should also be given the opportunity to present evidence in a trial court that the law unconstitutionally placed an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion. Instead of going to trial, the Center and the defendants entered into negotiations which resulted in the settlement agreement and revisions to the regulations.
