Phoenix, AZ (LifeNews.com) -- A nurse at a Planned Parenthood abortion business in Arizona has been doing abortions there for some time and recently decided to report her activities to the state. She wants Arizona officials to acknowledge her legal ability to do abortion -- something that could impact the laws of other states.

Unlike most states, Arizona has no law prohibiting non-doctors from doing abortions and Mary Andrews has taken it upon herself to do surgical abortions.

As CitizenLink reports, she wants the Arizona State Board of Nursing to give her its rubber stamp of approval.

But, doing so could pave the way for a other states to relax their requirements on only physicians doing abortions.

With so few doctors willing to do abortions and so many abortion practitioners running afoul of the law, there is an abortion practitioner shortage. That could be mitigated if nurses are allowed to put women's health at risk by doing surgical abortions.

Cathi Herrod of the Center for Arizona policy talked with CitizenLink about the situation.

“We don’t agree with anyone performing surgical abortions, but certainly we strongly oppose expanding the pool of licensed medical professionals who can perform abortions to include nurses," she said.

Denise Burke, an attorney with Americans United for Life, says only nine states currently don't have a requirement that only licensed physicians can do abortions.

“In many cases they simply don’t have a law on the books addressing who should be performing surgical abortions," she said of those without such a statute.

"If they can be successful in one state, then they may go to one of these others states that has no physician only requirement," Burke worries.