Election officials in Arizona certified on Monday that the hot-button issue of abortion will appear on the state ballot in November.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said that his office certified 577,971 signatures collected by proponents of the bill to put the measure in the hands of voters. If passed, it would allow abortions up until a fetus is viable, or could survive outside the womb, which is usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy. It would also restrict lawmakers from enforcing any laws that prohibit access to the women’s health procedure.
Fontes said that the number of collected signatures is a record for Arizona, according to a video message released from his office that was published by NBC News’ Alex Tabet. The measure was backed by the initiative Arizona for Abortion Access.
“This is a huge win for Arizona voters who will now get to vote YES on restoring and protecting the right to access abortion care, free from political interference, once and for all,” said Cheryl Bruce, campaign manager for Arizona for Abortion Access, in a statement Monday.
With women’s health care rights likely on many voters’ minds in the fall, the abortion issue could help propel Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in key swing states like Arizona. The Democratic nominee is gaining ground there against former President Donald Trump, according to recent polls, but the race still remains close in the key battleground state.
According to polling site FiveThirtyEight, Harris is up by just 0.3 percentage points on Trump as of Monday. The marginal gap, however, is an improvement for Democrats in less than a month—President Joe Biden was losing to Trump by 6 percentage points on the day that he dropped out of the presidential race on July 21, per The New York Times’ averages across national polling.
The abortion issue has been a winning one for Democrats in The Grand Canyon State since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. In the 2022 midterms, Democrats took Arizona’s gubernatorial seat, secretary of state office, attorney general and the state’s open seat in the U.S. Senate.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has been a proponent for reproductive rights throughout her time in office, including signing a bill in May that repealed the state’s 160-year-old abortion ban, which took effect after Roe’s demise and was upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court. The law enacted in 1864 included a near-total ban on the procedure except to save the life of the mother. State lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had voted to pass a repeal of the ban.
Abortion is now legal in Arizona up until 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law allows exceptions in cases of medical emergencies but has restrictions on nonsurgical abortion procedures. An ultrasound is also required before the procedure and minors must have parental consent to receive an abortion.
Newsweek reached out to Hobbs’ office via email for comment late Monday night.
Abortion is set to appear on the ballot in six other states this year: Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota.
Update 08/12/24, 11:46 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information and background.
