Opinion: Arizona voters have already sent a strong message to anti-abortion advocates: We see through your scare tactics.
By Candance Lew, opinion contributor
This week, Arizona history was made.
More than 800,000 Arizona voters have spoken: we want the chance to support the Arizona Abortion Access Act. We’ve proven that by turning in the most voter signatures ever collected by a citizens initiative in state history.
More than 7,000 volunteers and an army of Arizona circulators collected signatures from voters in all 15 counties, from independent, Democrat and Republican voters, from 18-year-olds and 100-year-olds, from men and women, in our cities and our rural communities.
Everywhere we went, voters clamored to sign in support of restoring and protecting the right to access abortion by enshrining this fundamental freedom in our state Constitution.
Voters know that without this, extremist politicians and special interests will never stop playing games with our lives.
Lawmakers won’t stop limiting abortion access
Over the last decade, anti-abortion extremists in Arizona have passed more than 30 laws restricting women’s access to reproductive health care and mandating policies in the exam room that have no basis in medical science.
Last year, anti-abortion extremists argued to the Arizona Supreme Court that they should reinstate a total ban on abortion, a law written in 1864 when Arizona wasn’t yet a state, slavery was legal and American women couldn’t vote.
This April, in a decision that sent shock waves across the country, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld that barbaric total ban, and the Legislature went on to narrowly repeal it after weeks of infighting.
That’s how we know they will never stop trying to limit our access to reproductive health care and abortion — unless we pass the Arizona Abortion Access Act.
The 823,685 signatures send a loud and clear message: Arizonans want politicians and judges out of our private and personal health care decisions. Those signatures send a message that Arizonans know abortion is health care and that current state law robs all of us of bodily autonomy and personal freedoms.
What’s more, nonstop politicking and flipflopping has hurt patients and restricted providers, creating a chilling effect on reproductive care across Arizona.
Read the full story here.