Arizona abortion rights ballot measure filed with 800K signatures

Abortion rights organizers gathered well over twice the number of signatures needed to put a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine the right to abortion in Arizona’s constitution.

Arizona Abortion Access for All, the group behind the measure, announced Wednesday it is turning in 823,685 signatures in favor of letting voters decide whether to adopt the Arizona Abortion Access Act. Only about 384,000 valid signatures — the equivalent of 15% of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election — are needed to put the measure on the ballot.

Signatures for citizen-led initiatives must be filed by July 3 with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office to qualify for the ballot.

“This is the most signatures ever gathered for a ballot measure in Arizona history, which is a testament to the broad support among Arizona voters for restoring and protecting abortion access in Arizona,” Cheryl Bruce, campaign manager of Arizona for Abortion Access, said in a press release.

The measure figures to play an outsized role in November’s election, which in Arizona also features a presidential rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump plus a Senate showdown between Democrat Ruben Gallego and election-denying Republican Kari Lake. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, similar citizen-backed referenda have driven voters to the polls in several red states.

Arizona is one of five states in which organizers are trying to put a measure on the 2024 ballot to permanently protect the right to abortion. Six other states have already established an abortion access question on their November ballots. Currently, only three states — Vermont, California and Michigan — have a constitutional right to an abortion.

The Arizona Abortion Access Act would “establish a fundamental right” for Arizonans to get an abortion any time before fetal viability outside the womb, which is typically after 23 or 24 weeks of gestation. The amendment also would prevent the state from creating or enforcing laws that interfere with abortions after the fetus reaches viability that medical professionals deem necessary for a pregnant person’s health.

State law currently outlaws most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. That law was passed before Roe was upended in 2022, though the issue of abortion in Arizona was hardly settled in that decision’s aftermath. If anything, the invalidation of Roe set off a chaotic struggle in the state over when, if ever, someone can terminate a pregnancy.

In April, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that reproductive rights in the state were governed not by the 15-week ban but by an 1864 law that outlawed almost all abortions from the point of conception. The decision caused a widespread uproar. Facing pressure, several Republicans responsible for the outcome voiced concerns about the ruling. The state legislature scrambled to repeal the Civil War-era law, though it took nearly a month to do so.

Progressive groups also launched an effort to unseat two of the state Supreme Court justices, Clint Bolick and Kathryn King, who voted to restore the 1864 law. In response, state Republicans approved a ballot referral to keep Bolick and King on the court even if voters choose to remove them in November.

The Secretary of State’s office will review the signatures collected in favor of the Arizona Abortion Access Act to decide if organizers met the requirement. A rule of thumb is that roughly 500,000 total signatures are needed to account for duplicates and other invalid signatures.

But if the measure qualifies for the ballot, and if voters approve it in November, it will provide a durable guarantee of abortion access for Arizonans.

“The people of Arizona are gonna speak loud and clear in November, and they are gonna pass that ballot initiative to enshrine reproductive rights in our constitution,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in April. “They are gonna enshrine it in the constitution so those extremist Republicans in the legislature can’t ever take it away from us.”