Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has signed her name to a ballot initiative that would make abortion a constitutional right within the state.
This week, seated in front of the Arizona Pioneer Women Memorial, Hobbs publicly added her name to a petition that would allow the initiative to be added to the 2024 ballot. By next July, 384,000 signatures are needed for the initiative to move forward.
Hobbs has been an ardent supporter of abortion since taking office, siding against her own state in a lawsuit, and instead siding with Planned Parenthood. During her ceremony, in which she added her name to the petition, she further reiterated her support for abortion. “In Arizona, we are just one bad court decision away from an 1864 abortion ban that carries prison time for doctors, and provides no exception for rape or incest,” she said. “That bad court decision could come any day now.”
The Arizona Supreme Court will hear arguments next month on whether an 1864 law protecting preborn children from abortion can be reinstated.
The ballot initiative is being pushed by Arizona for Abortion Access; like other state ballot initiatives, it is not a grassroots effort, but one funded by the abortion industry. In this instance, the initiative has been spearheaded by the ACLU, Reproductive Freedom for All, and Planned Parenthood.
If the initiative does make it to the 2024 ballot, voters would decide on the Arizona Abortion Access Act, which legalizes abortion through viability — an essentially meaningless term, subject to the determination of the abortionist. Thanks to medical advances, premature children are able to survive at younger and younger ages, but abortionists themselves have pointed out that viability means whatever the abortionist wants it to mean.
However, abortionists will also be able to commit an abortion at any period in time, given they find it necessary — essentially meaning that abortion will be permitted in Arizona without any limits if the act is passed.
“The vague language would go far beyond what most voters support,” Center for Arizona Policy Action President Cathi Herrod told the AZ Mirror. “The consequences would put our girls and women at risk because it would remove long-held, commonsense safety standards designed to protect girls and women; it would remove the required medical doctor, leaving girls and women in the hands of unqualified providers, and it would shut moms and dads out of their minor daughter’s abortion decision.”
