A Woman’s Life, A Woman’s Health: Equalizing Medicaid Abortion Funding in Simat Corp. v. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System

In a decision deviating from those of the United States Supreme Court, the Arizona Supreme Court declared the Arizona statute and accompanying AHCCCS provisions unconstitutional because they did not survive a strict scrutiny analysis under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Arizona Constitution. Where the state of Arizona has undertaken to fund abortions for indigent women whose lives are directly threatened by pregnancy, it cannot refuse to pay for abortions for similarly indigent women whose health, but not life, is threatened.