Arizona voters will decide this November whether to add abortion rights into their state constitution, a prospect that could turbocharge voter turnout in a critical battleground state in the 2024 election.

Late Monday, the Arizona secretary of state’s office announced that it had validated an estimated 577,971 signatures in support of a ballot measure, the Arizona For Abortion Access Act, to establish a constitutional right to abortion in the state.

On X, the office called the measure “the largest petition effort in Arizona history”. The measure will be listed on the ballot as Proposition 139.

  • @NatakuNox
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    3328 days ago

    Every state should be required to put abortion on the ballot this year. (if a direct vote hadn’t happened since the overturning of Roe.) States with trigger laws shouldn’t be allowed to implement decades old laws that were passed by a old and dying generation.

    • @Maggoty
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      628 days ago

      In Arizona the trigger law was over a century old. The Governor and AG publicly refused to enforce it and endorsed this ballot measure.

      Arizona truly is a purple state these days. I just hope they repair the damage the Republicans did under Brewer and Ducey.

    • @andrewta
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      328 days ago

      I agree it should be on the ballot in EVERY state. Simple question should abortion be legal?

      Yes -legal no restrictions

      No - illegal no exceptions

      • @[email protected]
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        -428 days ago

        As much as I’m pro abortion: no restrictions is bullshit too. Wouldn’t allow aborting in the 9th month if not the life of the mother is at stake.

        • @andrewta
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          1028 days ago

          Leave it to the doctor and the one who is pregnant. No one is seeking to abort at 8.5 months unless there is a serious medical reason. So yeah leave it to the doctor and the one who is pregnant.

          • bbbbbbbbbbb
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            128 days ago

            I mean I would, but I’m also a man that knows better than to be in that situation so I got sterilized. If someone wishes to abort at 8 and some or even 9 I have no ground to stand on when it comes to someones life that doesnt even involve me

        • SeaJ
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          728 days ago

          That’s not an abortion and also does not happen.

          • @[email protected]
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            -328 days ago

            An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. The guy I’m answering to is demanding either abortion with no restrictions or no abortion at all. So it is first of all not about what is happening, but about what would be allowed to happen. Abortion with no restrictions would make this generally legal.

            • SeaJ
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              28 days ago

              That is not the definition of an abortion otherwise a birth would be considered an abortion. An induced labor at 9 months would be a birth. We already have laws on the books to prosecute people who kill live individuals.

              The reason there should not be restrictions is because we do not need law enforcement analyzing every fucking later term abortion. Only 1% are at or past 21 weeks and the majority of those are at 21 weeks. The ones that occur after are from women who do absolutely want a child but there are complications with the fetus or the mother’s health. These women should not have to fear being arrested because they are aborting a non viable fetus which they will likely spend thousands of dollars to do. And if you think that is an unlikely scenario where the police would make an arrest, I have some bad news for you: women have been arrested for miscarriages. Hell, one woman was arrested after being shot caused her to miscarry.

              So no, no restrictions.

              • @[email protected]
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                -228 days ago

                So how do you define an abortion if not as a termination of pregnancy? The reasons you gave in my eyes are rather reasons to reform the American police system. How would police even know of a miscarriage or an abortion? Most countries have duty of confidentiality for medical staff?

                Also there is still a difference between restriction and prosecution and restrictions can be more or less restrictive. If there are medical complications an abortion shall always be allowed and if not in my opinion only up to a certain point into the pregnancy. Starting at somewhere around 23 weeks a fetus is able to survive outside of the womb, so besides medical reasons I’d set a cut somewhere there.

                • @Maggoty
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                  428 days ago

                  Wait are you not American? Have you been following what the conservatives in America have been doing?

                  They’ve taken any common sense rule and stretched it to the breaking point. And after Roe v. Wade was struck they’ve made abortion completely illegal in large swaths of America.

                  They have several ways to find out. They’ve mandated hospitals to report any they find out about with stiff penalties for not doing so. Doctors are liable for 99 year prison sentences for performing one. Anyone can inform the police if someone they know is suddenly not pregnant anymore. Anyone can sue a former pregnant woman and she cannot get her legal fees paid for even if she proves it was a miscarriage. This all includes penalties for getting an abortion out of state.

                  Before Roe v Wade was struck they passed law after law to make it as hard as possible to get an abortion before the 22 week cut off. Including waiting periods meant to artificially delay things and run out the clock and closing down places you could get an abortion until some states had only one or two clinics in the entire state. Then they also funded “pregnancy crisis centers”, whose entire purpose was to obfuscate the entire process.

                  So yeah some people want no legal restrictions because the conservatives have proven they can’t be trusted with them.

        • @halcyoncmdr
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          628 days ago

          Yeah, that’s not a real fucking thing. No one is going to planned parenthood to get an abortion at 9 months because they don’t want to raise a kid.

        • @Maggoty
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          528 days ago

          That’s a C-section birth. There are not abortions in the ninth month unless the fetus has become nonviable, which is extremely rare. More common is Mom gets hurt and the fetus has to be born early. In which case it gets care as a premie baby and all the help the hospital can give it to live.

          Again. Ninth month abortions do not happen. Anybody trying to get your vote or your money by telling you they happen is lying to you.

          • @[email protected]
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            128 days ago

            I am not even American and I guess I’m discussing on a rather ethical way and too far from the reality America is facing right now.

            My only point was that if you’d allow abortions without any restrictions and simply define an abortion as a termination of pregnancy you’d also allow this.

            I’d still rather vote for this than the abolition of abortion, just to be clear, but this would also be choosing one minor bad thing over the other.

          • @[email protected]
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            -128 days ago

            If you pay enough you find one and if it is not restricted in any way it is also legal. I’m not against abortions, but I think there need to be at least some regulations.

            • @[email protected]
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              228 days ago

              Sounds like a privatized healthcare problem. Most people getting abortions are not able to pay for expensive doctors anyway.

              This was extremely rare during Roe and will continue to be extremely rare, that shit doesn’t happen unless it’s a risk of harm to the carrier. All that law would do is put women at risk.

              Let the medical experts write the regulations, like they do for every other medical procedure.

              So many holes in this argument.

              • @Maggoty
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                228 days ago

                Shit in the ninth month it’s not an abortion unless the fetus itself is nonviable. Otherwise it’s a C-Section birth. Nobody is killing the fetus unless it’s absolutely necessary or before viability.

        • Billiam
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          328 days ago

          Yeah, there’s not a single woman who put up with the aches, morning sickness, tiny bladder, mood swings, gas, swollen joints, and everything else that accompanies pregnancy, for nine months before deciding she really didn’t want to be pregnant.

          The only reason women delay getting abortions is either something happens late in gestation that puts the life of the mother or the viability of the fetus as risk, or Republicans put up a bunch of arbitrary obstacles.

          • @[email protected]
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            -228 days ago

            What you are not thinking of is that there are psychologically instable people who are not able to make a conscious decision for themselves for a certain time or who just follow through with impulsive decisions. Also there are people being forced to do things by others.

            Having medical reasons for a late abortion is one thing (while still being allowed to have aan abortion withourt any reasons up to a certain point of time), being allowed to abort whenever you want without any restrictions just something totally different.

        • @[email protected]
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          128 days ago

          Sometimes when it comes up I like to say we should allow abortion up to 20 months, just to anchor the conversation a little. Little door in the face bargaining.

    • @AquaTofana
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      227 days ago

      I fucking wish every state could. Texas law makes it pretty much impossible to get abortion access on the ballot. Abbott and crew knew exactly what they were kicking off when they signed their “heartbeat bill” pre RvW reversal. They knew they were laying thw groundwork to turn women into brood mares.

      Our ballot initiatives need to come from our legislature itself, and then the voters get to say “Yeah I like that”, or “Nah not about it”.

      “For Texans to gain a direct say in changing these policies, the GOP-run Texas Legislature would need to pass a proposed constitutional amendment, which voters would then need to approve. (This yay-or-nay procedure is the only statewide policy-making power that regular Texans currently enjoy; voters weighed in on 14 such proposals from the Legislature Tuesday). One reason the Lege doesn’t want to give voters the initiative is fairly obvious: It would mean relinquishing some power—and giving interest groups a way to pass laws without lining elected officials’ pockets.”

      https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/the-reason-texans-cant-vote-on-abortion-and-weed/

  • @ccunning
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    428 days ago

    Will ballot initiatives like these have any notable effect on turnout in one direction or the other?

    I believe Florida also has a similar ballot initiative; I don’t know about any other states.

    • @randon31415
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      1328 days ago

      Here is the list

      The only one in doubt of making it on the ballot is in Arkansas where the secretary of state is pulling out all the stops to invalidate the payed canvassers signatures.

    • @Maggoty
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      228 days ago

      In Arizona it’s going to blow up the numbers. They had to fight to repeal an 1864 law and now it’s defaulted to a no exceptions 15 week law. So yeah, it’s a big deal in Arizona and likely to give the Democrats a boost in statewide offices. The state legislature is still hopelessly gerrymandered though.