One Black Woman-Run Clinic in Arizona Shows What Abortion Access Actually Looks Like Post-Dobbs

Desert Star Institute is one of nine brick-and-mortar abortion clinics in Arizona, run by a Christian Black woman physician who also provides gender-affirming care. The story maps the infrastructure gap post-Dobbs.

Dr. DeShawn Taylor runs the only Black woman-run abortion clinic in Arizona — Desert Star Institute for Family Planning in Phoenix — staffed entirely by women of color. It is one of nine brick-and-mortar abortion clinics in the state, serving a clientele that is predominantly Black and brown women. The clinic also offers gender-affirming hormone therapy, wellness exams, and birth control, making it a full-spectrum reproductive health provider in a state where the legal ground has shifted repeatedly since 2022.

The legal timeline matters. After the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in 2022 stripped federal abortion protections, Arizona imposed restrictions that advocates challenged in court. In 2024, Arizona voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution via Proposition 139. On 6 February 2026, an Arizona judge struck down laws requiring ultrasounds and 24-hour waiting periods before an abortion. That ruling triggered a surge in appointments at Desert Star, which settled to about 10 services a day by mid-March. Taylor, 51, founded the clinic in 2013 after moving from California. She ran it solo for a decade before selling it to her nonprofit at the end of 2023, enabling it to receive grants and host fundraising campaigns. She supplements the nonprofit's budget through speaking engagements and advisory boards, reducing the salary burden on the organization. The nonprofit also trains future abortion providers — residents, interns, physician assistants — and launched a birth justice hub that convenes birth workers, abortion doulas, and activists every four months. What makes Taylor unusual in the reproductive rights landscape is her explicit Christianity. She and some staff members pray with religious patients before procedures. She quotes scripture about free will to patients who fear divine condemnation. Her 2023 book, 'Undue Burden: A Black, Woman Physician on Being Christian and Pro-Abortion in the Reproductive Justice Movement,' and her 2026 workbook 'Beyond Choice' directly confront the claim that faith and abortion provision are incompatible. "How did abortion become the one sin that you can't repent for?" Taylor asks. "God is forgiving already." Taylor's public profile grew involuntarily in 2017 when the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress released deceptively edited undercover footage of her at a Planned Parenthood conference, framing her comments about fetal tissue research as evidence of infanticide. Rather than retreating, Taylor went louder — becoming an openly Christian abortion provider. Loretta J. Ross, associate professor at Smith College with 50 years in the movement, calls Taylor "special" for putting her career and license on the line to serve people with the least access. The structural picture here is stark. Nine clinics serve an entire state. One of them is doing the integrated model — abortion, gynecology, gender-affirming care, community organizing, provider training — on a nonprofit budget, with consultants urging Taylor to narrow the mission for cost efficiency. Taylor has refused. "If we ever did that, then why should this clinic be here?" The model works precisely because it treats abortion as healthcare rather than as a siloed political procedure. The story underneath the profile is about infrastructure fragility. Post-Dobbs reproductive health access in states like Arizona depends on a handful of clinics, a handful of providers willing to absorb legal risk, and legal rulings that can shift again. Taylor's clinic is generative — training providers, building community networks, serving underserved populations — but it is also a single point of resilience in a system designed to have as few points as possible.