PHOENIX — Some Valley businesses are getting involved in the fight for the right to choose.
“So, I decided that day that I did not want to have a baby and I had an abortion,” says Celina Washburn of Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom.
Tres Leches Café in downtown Phoenix turned their local business into a safe space for women Monday night.
“We started trying to figure out what we could do to help because we didn’t feel safe going out there and demonstrating or coming out to any future protests, especially not with our kids,” says Magaly Martinez & Jose Rivera from Tres Leches Café.
The owners of the coffee shop, along with Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom, held an open mic night with dozens of people from all across the Valley coming together.
“I have so much family that just went through the experience of not being able to access the care that they need, turning to alternate resources that haven’t been the most safe and I’ve just seen what that has done,” says one attendee.
Organizers also collected signatures on a petition for a constitutional amendment on the ballot to protect the right to abortions and access to birth control.
“It’s a recipe for disaster,” says Stephanie Paz, a mother.
Paz showed up in tears to the event, telling ABC15 that multiple stores were sold out of emergency contraceptives. When she finally found one, she says she was almost denied from purchasing it.
“How is it right here, right in front of me… but because of the new law, you’re trying to make an excuse to not sell it to me. What is my future? At this point, I’m thinking what is my future going to look like if I can’t get this out of the shelf?” says Paz.
Like many women, she's had a complication during pregnancy and is now worried for her own daughter.
“God forbid, she goes to the hospital because there’s something wrong with her pregnancy and I have to choose between something that’s not viable and my daughter,” says Paz.
