I had to write this column. I had to warn women across the state and indeed across our nation—we are in the fight of our lives for our personal rights and our human rights.
It’s absolutely horrifying that we have come to a point in this country where women have to fear being monitored, surveilled or policed over their personal reproductive and healthcare rights. As a contributor to various abortion rights organizations, I have tried to sound the alarm and once Prop. 139 collected more than enough signatures to be placed on the ballot on Nov. 5, I knew that the work had only just begun.
A YES vote on Prop. 139 will help eliminate brutal and archaic measures being placed into legislation across the country by people who want to strip women of their reproductive rights and healthcare choices if they don’t line up with extreme ideologies or zealous religious views that have no place in our Constitution.
What will a YES vote on Prop. 139 do for women in Arizona?
For starters, under Prop. 139, the state cannot limit access to abortion before fetal viability without establishing that the limitation (1) is solely to protect the health of the patient, (2) doesn’t infringe on their autonomous decision making, and (3) uses only the least restrictive means.
Prop. 139 also protects access to abortion after fetal viability if a treating healthcare provider determines an abortion is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the patient, using accepted clinical standards and evidence-based medicine. And lastly, but probably most important, Prop. 139 prevents the state from penalizing anyone who assists another person in exercising their right to abortion, such as a relative taking her niece to the doctor or a doctor sending a patient to another office for care, because believe it or not, these insane penalties are being sought and played out in other states.
If the Trump/Vance ticket wins, women can expect their personal lives to be invaded by government interference on every level through the Trump/Vance Project 2025.
Reading the connection between the Trump/Vance ticket and advocacy of Project 2025 should be the biggest wake-up call for women everywhere.Caption:Reproductive Freedom Lobby Day: Expanding Access and Protecting Bodily
Project 2025 would effectively, implement a national 50-state abortion ban without exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother (Page 6)
Project 2025 would advocate to revoke the approval of multiple medications like the abortion pill (mifepristone) and even medication that is used to help induce childbirth and treat conditions unrelated to pregnancy. (pages 284 and 457)
Project 2025 (page 485) calls for the ending of coverage to contraceptives including the morning-after and week after pills in all 50 states.
On page (473) Project 2025 calls for the overturning of EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act)—the federal doctrine that requires hospitals and doctors to provide life-saving care in life-or-death situations, including life-saving abortions.
Pages (459-and 562) calls for the “weaponization” of make it a felony to ship, transport, or provide information about abortion pills.
Every woman should know how Project 2025 would literally police your body.
And as horrifying as that is, it doesn’t stop there…Project 2025 calls for the creation of a national abortion SURVEILLANCE STATE that would require every state to report data on any pregnant woman who have sought abortion care even attempted to research abortion care options. It also empowers states to pass abortion bounty hunter laws like the one in Texas that provides a financial incentive for private citizens to report of file suit against any woman they suspect sought an abortion or provided information to a woman regarding abortion.
Finally, a majority of Republicans in the House have already signed onto a bill that would BAN IVF nationally, H.R. 431 would define life as starting at conception and criminalize and prosecute any doctors, nurses or healthcare workers who engage in providing these treatments because by definition, any cells lost or damaged will be defined as persons.
We must stop Project 2025. We must defeat the Donald Trump/Vance ticket and elect pro-choice majorities in Congress and state legislatures.
Even while the threat of a federal ban on abortion looms under the leadership of Donald Trump, Arizonans need to begin here—with VOTING YES ON PROP 139.
Arizonans must send a strong message now…we will NOT GO BACK.
Women deserve protected healthcare and reproductive rights.
