After the Arizona Abortion Access Act collected more than 570,000 valid signatures cleared the way according to a statement from the campaign manager for the initiative, Cheryl Bruce and ushers in, “A huge win for Arizona voters to vote YES on restoring and protecting the right to access abortion care, free from political interference, once and for all,”
In November, Arizonans will be the ones to decide whether to amend the Az. constitution and guarantee the right to abortion, state election officials said on Monday.
Proposition 139, The Abortion Access Act, will be on the ballot and will guarantee a woman’s right to an abortion up to the point of fetal viability—around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Exceptions to that limit would be allowed if a health care provider determined it was necessary to preserve a patient’s life, physical or mental health.
The deputy communications officer for the Arizona Secretary of State’s office confirmed Monday that it certified 577,971 valid signatures that were turned in by a coalition of reproductive rights organizations, dubbed Arizona for Abortion Access. The coalition includes the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.
The measure would also keep the state from adopting or enforcing any policy that restricts access to abortion unless its intent is to safeguard the patient’s life or health.
The Arizona Abortion Access Act would turn back decades of anti-abortion laws enacted to deter women from seeking abortions.
Members of the Arizona for Abortion Access campaign who have gathered signatures over the past year for the constitutional amendment celebrated their win on Monday.
“Thousands of local volunteers, and dozens of organizations focused on reproductive rights, healthcare, faith communities, and Veterans rights, not to mention millions of Arizonans have been looking forward to this day for more than a year,” campaign spokeswoman Chris Love said in the statement. “More than 7,000 Arizonans worked through snow, heat, wind and rain since Sept. 2023 collecting these signatures from friends, neighbors and fellow voters to ensure we would have a say in the laws that govern our lives.”
While the initiative still faces litigation, a trial court judge on Aug. 5 rejected a lawsuit filed by Arizona Right to Life and anti-abortion organization.
Arizona Right to Life challenged the summary of the act language on the petitions using the term “health care provider” while the text of the act refers to the “treating health care provider” when describing who has the authority to determine that an abortion is necessary beyond fetal viability.
Attorneys for the anti-abortion organization stated that removing the word “treating” misled those who signed the petition. But a Maricopa County Superior Court judge disagreed, dismissing the lawsuit.
The Right to Life filed an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court, which is expected to rule before Aug. 22.
“Today, we got word that Arizona’s 15 counties finished their review of a random sample of our signatures and the Secretary of State confirmed that we gathered far more than enough valid signatures, 50 percent above the required minimum. It is the most signatures ever validated by a citizen’s initiative in state history,” Arizona for Abortion Access, the group behind the measure, celebrated in a statement.
Reproductive rights questions are also scheduled to go before voters in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota this year, potentially boosting the chances of Democrats who blame former President Donald Trump for state abortion passages imposed following the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
