Arizona abortion ban will drive more patients to California

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California clinics have begun preparing for a possible influx of patients seeking abortions, following the Arizona Supreme Court decision Tuesday to outlaw the procedure in nearly all instances.

The court ruled Tuesday that the state should follow an 1864 law that bans abortion in almost all cases. The ban won’t immediately take effect, but would allow abortions to take place only to save the woman’s life. Performing an abortion in any other case would be punishable by two to five years in prison.

Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California is expecting a “marked increase in patients from Arizona at our health care centers in California,” Jodi Hicks, the group’s CEO, said in a statement to the Chronicle. “We’ve been generally preparing over the last several years for more and more out-of-state patients through strategic investments and statewide efforts to move forward policy solutions to support abortion access,” she said.

States like Nevada and New Mexico will also likely see some patients coming from Arizona, but “California would be a place that many of them would go, particularly given that California has been very public and has passed many policies and laws expanding access to abortion, ” Alina Salganicoff, director for women’s health policy at the nonprofit health research organization KFF, told the Chronicle.

California has positioned itself as a haven for people seeking abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Voters enshrined the right to one in the state constitution last year, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed 24 abortion protection-related bills into law over the past two years.

This will be the first time California shares a border with a state where abortion is banned.

Between 1,000 and 1,200 abortions take place in Arizona each month, Salganicoff said. Those abortions all occur up to 15 weeks into a pregnancy; patients who need one after 15 weeks already need to travel out of state.

States bordering Texas began opening clinics that provide only medication abortion after abortion was banned in the state, said Rachel Jones, a research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute. That could be one way California addresses the increased demand.