In the wake of the 2024 election, Arizonans processed the implications of the state’s constitutional amendment enshrining abortion with the passing of Proposition 139.
The Arizona Abortion Access Act passed 61.3% to 38.7%, according to election data from the Associated Press. The new amendment will supersede the 15-week abortion ban Arizona implemented in 2022.
Many Arizonans feel the return of the Trump administration has undermined the proposition's success.
Linda Maley, an Arizona activist and petitioner, said she is proud of her work helping protect reproductive rights within the state for the time being, but she acknowledges that the fight isn’t over.
“I didn’t realize that even though it is going to be a part of the Constitution many other laws will chip away at that right for women,” said Maley. “I was a little surprised at that, I sort of thought that having a constitutional amendment would override those, but I guess it doesn’t. So there is still work to be done.”
The amendment expressly states that every individual has the fundamental right to abortion before or after fetal viability (typically 24 weeks) to protect the mental and physical health of the pregnant person. The state can not interfere with the right to an abortion including penalizing any individual or entity for providing an abortion according to the analysis by the legislative council in July.
Abortion was ranked among the top 10 most important issues this election by U.S. adults according to recent data from Gallup. Across the country, 10 states voted to protect reproductive rights. Arizona and six other states past protective measures. Despite it being one of the top issues, reproductive rights, and healthcare are not mentioned in Trump’s presidential Agenda 47 “20 Core Promises to Make America Great Again.”
Within the official 2024 GOP Platform, abortion is mentioned once in a “pro-life” statement about the 14th Amendment guaranteeing life and liberty, alluding to fetal personhood under chapter nine.
It ends by saying, “We proudly stand for families and Life. We will oppose Late-Term Abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”
These statements provide little comfort to those who don’t believe the President-Elect’s claim to veto a national abortion ban due to the similarities between Trump’s agenda and much of Project 2025.
Conservative, Roger Severino, prior director of the U.S. Health and Human Services wrote chapter 14 of Project 2025.
It stated, “The Secretary must ensure that all HHS programs and activities are rooted in a deep respect for innocent human life from day one until natural death: Abortion and euthanasia are not health care.”
Planned Parenthood, Indivisible, ACLU and other organizations mobilized in August 2023 launching the canvasing and signature-gathering effort that got the proposition on the ballot. Arizona activist and women’s rights advocate, Beth Ballmann, helped collect over half a million valid signatures from registered voters for the grassroots movement.
“We gave it our all and we sent a strong message earning around 60% of the vote,” said Ballmann. “Now we need to do all we can to nurture and support each other, including making as large as a donation we can afford to the AZ Abortion Fund.”
Ballmann urges that these donations will help provide healthcare for those who need it. The official GOP Platform plan does not mention reproductive rights. Again adding to the anxiety of many voters who already were alarmed by Trump’s past bragging statements about appointing the justices responsible for overturning Roe.
“I remember before Roe v. Wade,” said Maley an Arizona activist. “ It’s a huge issue, to say that women don’t have the right to make decisions for themselves over their own health, it’s just appalling. If something like this comes up again, I’ll be out there again.”
The polarizing nature of the topic led to anti-abortion groups across Arizona running opposition campaigns to the Triple-A’s. One group expressed their disappointment in the passing of the proposition.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Regional Director, Adam Schwend, said in a press release following the election, “We mourn the lives that will be lost under the pro-abortion amendment, Proposition 139. Arizona is now far less free with a late-term abortion amendment in the constitution.”