Arizona abortion rights advocates launch signature-gathering effort for ballot measure

A coalition of reproductive rights advocates has started gathering the signatures it needs to add the right to an abortion in the Arizona Constitution.

Arizona for Abortion Access, which is supported by the ACLU of Arizona, Arizona List and Planned Parenthood of Arizona, among others, will use both volunteers and paid staff to gather signatures, leaders announced Thursday at a news conference in Phoenix. The signatures are required to put the question of both protecting and expanding abortion rights in Arizona on the November 2024 general election ballot.

The constitutional amendment, called the Arizona Abortion Access Act, would create a "fundamental right" to obtain an abortion anytime before viability — the point at which a fetus would have a significant chance of surviving outside the womb absent extraordinary measures. Fetal viability is typically at about 23 or 24 weeks of gestation.

After viability, the act prevents the state from enacting, adopting or enforcing any law that denies, restricts or interferes with an abortion that, "in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional, is necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual," according to language submitted to the state in September.

Right now, abortions in Arizona are legal up to 15 weeks gestation with no exceptions for rape or incest, but the law does make an exception to save the life of the pregnant person. Prior to the 15-week ban, surgical abortions in Arizona were legal up until fetal viability.

Campaign leaders are hoping for more than a half-million signatures

The campaign needs to gather at least 383,923 valid signatures from Arizona voters by July 3, 2024, but the aim is to gather about double that number, said Chris Love, senior adviser to Arizona for Abortion Access and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.

"Obviously, we need a comfortable cushion here in the state of Arizona because we do get a lot of challenges on our signatures," Love said. "So I think we want to at least come in with twice the amount of valid signatures that we need. So that'll put us over 600,000."

Love said she doesn't think the coalition will have trouble getting enough signatures, even though a similar effort to put such an initiative on the 2022 election ballot failed.

"We are encouraged by the efforts of that group that attempted last year. However, I think we have the benefit of time," Love said. "We have an army of volunteers and we have a paid firm that will be out collecting at the same time. And, you know, that's just necessary in this time of these times, especially because of the large volume of signatures that we need to gather."

Anyone who wants to sign the ballot initiative can search for locations at the Arizona for Abortion Access website, organizers said. The website is https://arizonaforabortionaccess.org/, and signature gatherers are planning to attend "every event you can think of," Love said.

A 'vigorous no campaign' is expected

A "vigorous no campaign" to the Arizona Abortion Access Act is expected to ramp up and "expose how far-reaching this extreme abortion measure truly is," said Cathi Herrod, who is president of the Center for Arizona Policy Action, the political arm of the conservative Center for Arizona Policy.

The measure does not only allow abortions up until viability, Herrod said. The language that allows protections after viability when it's necessary to protect the physical or mental health of the pregnant person is a "broad exception," according to Herrod.

"The broad exception of mental health to the viability standard would allow abortions for virtually any reason up until the moment of birth," Herrod said. "The measure is full of vague, undefined terms."

Abortion rights supporters who attended the announcement of the signature-gathering campaign said abortions will happen regardless of laws to ban them.

"As an obstetrician/gynecologist who has treated hundreds of patients seeking abortion care over the past 13 years, I can tell you with authority that the truth is, abortion has always been a reality and a necessity," said Dr. Jill Gibson, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Arizona, who wore a pin that said "Bans Off Our Bodies."

Communities need autonomy over their own bodies, Gibson said, and for personal health decisions to remain between patients and physicians. And physicians "should not be legally forbidden from providing the highest quality of care to our patients," she said.

"I've helped victims of sexual assault and incest who are further along in their pregnancies get to states where there is not a 15-week abortion ban," Gibson said. "One of them was suicidal at the prospect of having to continue the pregnancy. Our state's current ban on abortion after 15 weeks remains a significant barrier for my patients to receive the health care that they need and deserve."

An Arizona appellate court panel ruled on Dec. 30 that the 15-week ban would remain in place and licensed physicians would not be prosecuted for performing abortions up until 15 weeks despite a near-total abortion ban that remains on the books in Arizona.

Anti-abortion groups appealed the appellate court decision to the Arizona Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case in December.

In the legal system: US appeals court hears challenge to Arizona's abortion ban for 'genetic abnormalities'

Reach health care reporter Stephanie Innes at [email protected] or at 602-444-8369. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @stephanieinnes.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Abortion rights advocates are collecting signatures for AZ initiative