United States: An abortion rights group of Arizona garnered enough signatures, handed over a petition to the Arizona secretary of state on Wednesday morning to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would enshrine women’s right to an abortion.
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The group is called Arizona for Abortion Access, whose efforts worked behind making the petition, and successfully garnered 823,685 voter signatures, which is over double the 383,923 registered voter signatures needed to get on the November 2024 ballot.
The amendment proposal that was made is called the “Arizona Abortion Access Act.” The said act would give a permit to let abortion be done till the 24 to 26 weeks gestation period. However, there is one exception contained: after that period, “if a treating healthcare provider determines an abortion is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the patient,” as ABC News reported.
The ballot committee’s speaker, Dawn Penich, while speaking at the press conference held at the Arizona State Capitol, said it is the “most signatures ever submitted” done by any citizen-led ballot initiative.
He went further, “To put that into context, that means one out of every five Arizona voters signed this petition,” as ABC News reported.
What if the petition gets approved?
According to the ABC News reports the petition will be verified by the county officials before the end of August to check if the threshold for the required number of signatures is met. If it gets approved, then the Arizona Secretary of State’s office will declare it as certified.
Moreover, if the petition becomes successful in garnering approval, then Arizona will join another four such states – Colorado, Florida, Maryland, and Nevada which have established the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the SC, the other four states, California, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont, did conduct voting to allow abortion rights in their respective constitutions.