Since February, patients have visited Dr. William Richardson’s Tucson clinic from across the state, including rural areas far from any providers. Richardson hears the same thing from many of those patients: “We didn’t know it would be this straightforward. We thought it was going to require a lot more to come in and get this done.”
Richardson runs Choices Women’s Center, one of Arizona’s few remaining abortion clinics , and his name is on the lawsuit that struck down abortion restrictions in the state.
In February, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Greg Como permanently blocked a set of restrictions. The ruling voided the requirement that patients make two trips and wait 24 hours between visits, excluded an accompanying counseling script, removed a ban on abortion by reason of a fetal genetic or health diagnosis, and lifted a ban on prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine.
Como ruled that all those restrictions violated the Arizona Constitution, amended in 2024 with the passage of Proposition 139.
The other provider named in the case was Dr. Paul Isaacson, the Isaacson in Isaacson v. Arizona, a Phoenix physician Richardson has known for years.
RELATED: This Phoenix dad, husband, and doctor just helped change abortion rules in Arizona
“Dr. Isaacson sometimes feels like my brother from another mother,” he said. Both of them grew up in Detroit, are similar ages, and came to Arizona in the 1990s.
Richardson finished his residency and moved to Tucson. “We both came over here [to Arizona] just to see what was going on and ended up staying here,” Richardson said.
He said his first real exposure to abortion stuck with him. As a young resident, he watched a woman who was about 14 weeks pregnant come into the emergency room with a placental abruption, which happens when the placenta tears loose from the uterus. The fetus had already died, and the mother was bleeding badly. The only way to save her life was through abortion.
“The first time I saw somebody do an abortion, it was lifesaving to that person,” Richardson said.
He decided it was a skill he needed in his toolbox, so he informed the doctor who performed the procedure of his interest. After that, high-risk physicians started pulling him into the room when a pregnancy turned dangerous.
Since then, his career path has oscillated between Planned Parenthood and his own clinics. In 2000, he started working with Planned Parenthood and eventually became the medical director from 2014 to 2020, then left to open his own reproductive health practice. Years later, Planned Parenthood bought that practice, allowing Richardson to serve as its medical director a second time before he departed to start Choices.
Isaacson v. Arizona wasn’t his first lawsuit. He joined a 2009 federal challenge to the same 24 hour, two-trip law—but the court declined to block the regulation, and the requirement stood for another 17 years. Despite the prior court filing’s failure, Richardson kept signing on to suits.
He said the most recent case felt like the end point of 30 years of practice. Proposition 139 gave prior complaints legal weight, and Richardson wanted to lay out what the restrictions did to patients in front of a judge to drive home the real-world consequences of anti-abortion laws.
He traced the amendment back to the fall of Roe v. Wade. When the Dobbs decision came down, Arizona clinics went dark while lawyers scrambled to sort out what was legal. For a time, nobody could get an abortion in the state. And from 2022 to 2024, people had to wait and see whether the 2022 15-week restriction or 1864 total abortion ban were enforceable.
“Arizonans got a taste of what it might be like to live in a place like Florida or Texas or South Dakota,” Richardson said. “And when they got a taste of that, they didn’t like it.”
“The Dobbs decision basically is what made people wake up and say ‘Hey, we don’t want that in our state. We don’t want women in our state to be treated that way,’” he said.
Two restrictions struck down by the courts had previously weighed on him heavily: the waiting period and the telemedicine ban. Much of southern Arizona is a long drive from a clinic, Richarsdson said, and telehealth lets him reach patients who are unable to easily make the trip.
Before offering a fully remote medication abortion, Richardson said he confirms the patient is sure of her last period, has no bleeding disorder, and is not a high risk for an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy that implants outside the uterus).
“You can actually trust women,” Richardson said, explaining that research shows telemedicine is safe and effective.
The mandated counseling script required to be read to patients ahead of an abortion bothered Richardson for a different reason. He said parts of it were medically incorrect, and some of it fell hard on patients who wanted their pregnancies but were ending them because something had gone wrong.
Reading it out loud made him feel like “a mouthpiece for the state when the whole reason I’m supposed to be there is to help the patient.”
Richardson said he never wanted to disobey the law and would always read the mandatory script, but afterward would tell patients that was required by law and share his medical opinion.
“One thing I can say is I’ve certainly learned to catch a curveball because it’s always something here in Arizona,” Richardson said.
He was blunt about the pressure from politicians.
“I think a common strategy of anti-abortion folks is to initiate litigation,” Richardson said. “Not necessarily with the idea that they are going to win, but with the idea that the litigation itself will wear you down.”
He said the constant need for clinics to defend themselves is the point, and it pushes facilities to cut services or close completely. He’s kept staff who worked stretches without pay, only staying because of their belief that things would turn around.
Richardson knows providers elsewhere have even been killed because of anti-abortion rhetoric, but feels safe in Tucson.
The win for abortion isn’t entirely secure, though. Republican leaders in the Arizona Legislature have defended the unconstitutional laws and signaled that they will appeal the decision.
Appeals could bring the case to the same Arizona Supreme Court that briefly reinstated the 1864 total abortion ban, and another federal fight over mailing abortion pills could undercut the telemedicine victory.
“Everybody needs to know, including lawmakers, that this is not the finish line,” Richardson said. “We created an opportunity here, but we still have a responsibility to continue improving access responsibly, thoughtfully, and safely.”
He said he believes the case he partook in moved the needle positively for abortion care.
“Somebody coming in and saying they didn’t have to arrange childcare twice in order to come in. Somebody coming in and saying the 24 hour waiting period didn’t delay their care. Somebody coming in and saying that we made it easier for them to access because for some other reason they previously weren’t able to come to the clinic, that’s moving the needle for me and that’s exactly why I got involved,” Richardson said.
“Take the win when you get it.”
