More than 500 doctors sign letter supporting Arizona Abortion Access Act

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - A letter signed by 550 Arizona doctors is asking residents to support the voter initiative which has a good chance of appearing on the ballot in November.

A copy of the letter can be found HERE.

For some of the doctors, abortion rights are personal.

“My wife and I suffered a miscarriage with our second pregnancy,” said Dr. Andrew Carroll, a Chandler physician. “She was severely hemorrhaging and went suddenly unconscious in the emergency room due to rapid blood loss. She had to have an emergency D&C in order to save her life.”

Any delay, he believes, and his wife would have died.

A D&C is a procedure used in some abortions.

7,000 volunteers have been gathering signatures to get the Arizona Abortion Access Act on the Nov. 5 ballot. They need 383,923 valid signatures to make the ballot. By April 2, they said they had more than a half million and hope to turn in more than 800,000 by the July 3 deadline.

The volunteers are being urged to go to Phoenix on Saturday, June 15 to turn in the signature petitions so they can be prepared to turn over to the Secretary of State’s office.

According to the supporters, the proposed constitutional amendment takes Arizona back to Roe vs. Wade days but nothing else.

“The Arizona Abortion Access Act puts health care decisions where they belong,” said Candace Lew, a Phoenix area OB/GYN for the past 40 years. “With patients, their families and their health care providers.”

A small group of supporters rallied in Phoenix to call attention to the letter and remind people of what life was like for women pre-Roe.

“They were being maimed, they were hemorrhaging from back alley abortions, they were using hangers, knitting needles and they were injecting bleach,” said Robin Williams, one of the petition carriers, who said she had an abortion as a teenage pre-Roe. “It was a very scary and trying time.”

Williams said she had to go to New York to have her abortion but not every woman has the means, financial and otherwise, to travel to get treatment.

Presently, Arizona’s abortion laws are unclear. An 1864 territorial law that bans nearly all abortions.. may go into effect in late September, which is why supporters of the initiative said its passage is crucial to protect a woman’s right to make her own decisions.

“This amendment simply restores the right Arizonans had for the past 50 years before Roe vs. Wade was overturned,” Lew said.

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