Arizona lawmaker tells her abortion story to show ‘reality’ of restrictions
When Eva Burch learned recently that she would lose another pregnancy, she felt exhausted.
The Arizona state senator had struggled with fertility for years, suffering a miscarriage more than a decade ago and getting an abortion after experiencing a nonviable pregnancy in 2022. She and her husband knew there was a chance her current pregnancy would not be viable. And after a medical provider told her that she would not be able to deliver a healthy baby, she knew she would seek another abortion.
This time, Burch and her husband also made another difficult decision: She would tell the Arizona Senate about her plan to end her pregnancy — and how the state’s abortion restrictions made it more painful.
“I think that we both just felt like enough is enough,” Burch, a Democrat and mother of two, told The Washington Post.
On Monday, she shared her story in a 10-minute speech on the Senate floor. Voice shaking, Burch told her colleagues that she’d visited a clinic on Friday where she was given an invasive ultrasound and counseling on alternatives to abortion, despite already knowing her pregnancy was not viable. Required under Arizona law, those experiences, Burch said in the speech, were “cruel.”
Her remarks highlighted the clash over abortion in Arizona, where the procedure is illegal after 15 weeks and a near-total ban could be reinstated while abortion advocates are hoping to enshrine protections in the state’s constitution this year.
While Burch held the microphone, a few of her Democratic colleagues stood behind her in a show of support. She said she could see some GOP senators leaving the chamber.
Still, Burch kept speaking, hoping to show “the reality of how the work that we do in this body impacts people in the real world.”
“There’s no one-size-fits-all script for people seeking abortion care, and the legislature doesn’t have any right to assign one,” she said Monday.
Arizona law mandates that a provider conduct an ultrasound and offer the patient a chance to see the image at least 24 hours before performing an abortion. Physicians are also required to inform patients about alternatives that a “reasonable patient would consider material to the decision of whether or not to undergo the abortion.”
The Post’s attempts to reach Arizona officials who have sponsored bills limiting abortion were not successful Tuesday. Arizona Majority Leader Sen. Sonny Borrelli (R) also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Borrelli left the chamber during Burch’s speech before coming back to adjourn for the day, according to a spokesperson for Burch.
On the Senate floor, Burch described the protocol mandated by state law as interfering in what she believed to be the “safest and most appropriate treatment for me.” She said she was forced to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound that she did not want and was then told about alternatives including parenting and adoption that did not apply to her situation.
Before she was elected to the Arizona Senate, Burch spent more than a decade working as a nurse at a women’s health clinic. That background, she said in her speech, “informs the understanding that I have of my situation.”
In 2022, while campaigning for the seat she holds, Burch learned that her then-pregnancy was not viable. She started to miscarry before her abortion appointment.But she was unable to receive the procedure at a hospital because, she said, she “wasn’t bleeding out” and her case was not considered critical.
She had an abortion the next day at a clinic. Two weeks later, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, rolling back the 50-year right to abortion.
As she spoke on the Senate floor, Burch told The Post that she felt terror, adrenaline rushing through her.
“Sharing it in that way is unnatural to me. It’s uncomfortable for me,” she said Tuesday. “But I also felt strongly that it was the right thing to do.”
Though Burch did not disclose who her providers were or the exact dates of when she learned of her pregnancy and its prognosis, she detailed the difficulty of recent weeks, saying she was the “perfect example of why this relationship should be between patients and providers.”
She then went on to urge that voters be given the chance to weigh in on abortion in November. Abortion rights groups in the state have been working to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would guarantee the right to an abortion up to fetal viability, around 22 to 24 weeks.
“The right people for that job are not here in the Arizona legislature,” Burch said. “Arizonans deserve the freedom and the liberty to make those decisions for themselves.”
Ahead of Monday’s speech, Burch kept her plans largely private. But minutes before the session began, she told some of her Democratic colleagues what she intended to do on the floor and invited them to stand with her.
While Burch had wanted her Republican colleagues to hear her story and was disappointed to see them leave, she hoped her words might reach beyond the chamber to Arizonans — especially those who have faced difficult decisions or had to navigate the changing landscape of reproductive care.
“I’m with them. I appreciate them,” Burch said Monday. “I am them.”
Praveena Somasundaram is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix desk. She joined The Post as an intern on the General Assignment desk and has previously reported at the Dallas Morning News and the Charlotte Observer
