Legal challenges still lie ahead on how the state’s existing statutory abortion scheme interacts with a measure enshrining a right to abortion in the state’s Constitution.
Voters handily approved the measure, per a race called by the Associated Press on Nov. 6, with about 62% support.
Arizona already has a whole statutory network of abortion laws, though, which opponents to Proposition 139 argue are now bound to be undone or otherwise complicated with the measure’s passage.
Laws on the books now include a 15-week limit, a requirement for parental consent, a prohibition on providing abortion drugs by mail and a requirement for a sometimes unnecessary fetal ultrasound.
Richie Taylor, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said Prop. 139 is set to take effect on Nov. 25, with the certification of the statewide canvass.
“Like any other constitutional provision, it will supersede any statutory provisions,” Taylor said. “But now the referendum has passed, litigation may be necessary to determine the specific impact on existing state law.”
The ACLU Arizona and Center for Reproductive Rights have already noted a plan to see to it that laws in conflict with the provisions of Prop. 139 do not stand.
In a written statement, Victoria López, director of program and strategy for the ACLU of Arizona, said, “We plan to take action in the coming weeks to implement the state’s new constitutional amendment consistent with the will of the people to protect Arizonans’ rights and freedoms.”
Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, punctuated the same sentiments, saying in a written statement, “The Center for Reproductive Rights will continue working with our partners in Arizona to ensure the state’s abortion laws reflect the will of the people – whether that’s through litigation or legislative repeal.”
As for any legal challenge to the proposition itself, Prop. 139 contemplated the potential for legal challenge.
“The People of the State of Arizona desire that this measure, if approved by the voters and thereafter challenged in court, be defended by the State of Arizona. The political action committee that sponsored this measure (or its designee) shall have standing to initiate or intervene in any action or proceeding to enforce (and) defend this measure,” the proposition reads.
Cathi Herrod, president of Center for Arizona Policy, which has been instrumental to the passage of much of Arizona’s abortion restrictions, could not yet say what exactly legal action will look like, either to the measure itself or on the measure’s impact on existing abortion laws.
“It’ll take some time to analyze next steps,” Herrod said. “But I do anticipate next steps.”
The measure prohibits the state from enacting any law or policy that would deny, restrict or interfere with the right to an abortion before fetal viability, defined as the point in pregnancy when there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the use of extraordinary medical measures.
And there’s the cutout for a “compelling state interest,” or a law adopted for the “limited purpose of improving or maintaining the health of an individual seeking an abortion consistent with clinical practice standards and evidence-based medicine and that does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
The campaign to enshrine abortion into the state Constitution came after a lengthy legal fight over what law controlled Arizona abortion, a 15-week limit passed by the Legislature in 2022, or an 1864 all-out ban on abortion.
In April, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the 1864 law, though the law was later repealed by the Legislature, so the 15-week limit takes precedence.
Over the course of the election cycle, Arizona for Abortion Access raised a total of $35 million, while opposition, It Goes Too Far, brought in about $1.4 million in income.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
