Woman who shared her abortion story discusses Proposition 139
Ashley Ortiz, an abortion rights supporter, talks about sharing her story to promote Arizona’s Amendment 139 on election night, Nov. 5, 2024.
Arizona voters have overwhelmingly approved a measure creating abortion rights in the state, guaranteeing access to abortion two years after federal protections were erased.
Proposition 139, the Arizona Abortion Access Act, won the support of roughly two voters for each one opposed, according to election results as of early Wednesday. The Associated Press called the race early Wednesday, though election results in Arizona are unofficial until state and local officials have tabulated and canvassed the results.
Arizona joins a string of states — both liberal and conservative-leaning — where voters have made clear that abortion should be available and protected. Arizona’s law has been in flux for two years, and for a time the state had one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation on its books.
From the earliest results Tuesday night, the margin of victory was clear. Leaders of the campaign to amend Arizona’s constitution shed tears of joy as the first vote totals were updated on television screens at a victory party in Phoenix.
Ashley Ortiz, of Mesa, sat next to her husband, tears coming to her eyes. The tears reflected a reassurance: “That the people in our communities agree that this should be a right,” she said.
“It renews faith and hope,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz was one of several women who told their personal stories publicly in support of the campaign — stories that campaign leaders credited for the win. They included women who became pregnant after being raped. They included mothers who lost wanted pregnancies. And dozens more.
Those personal experiences countered opposition messaging that Arizona’s law, which allowed abortion up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, was sufficient and the ballot measure went too far. The 15-week law did not include exceptions for rape or incest.
Republican lawmakers passed the 15-week law in 2022, as the U.S. Supreme Court was considering a case that ultimately overturned federal abortion protections and left abortion law up to states to decide.
Ortiz went into labor at 20 weeks, before her baby would survive outside the womb, in 2023. Doctors would not provide an abortion because of Arizona’s law, saying Ortiz’s condition would need to deteriorate or the baby’s heart had to stop before they could provide care.
Ortiz and her husband planned to travel to Nevada for an abortion.
“Considering this was a deeply wanted pregnancy that I was devastated to lose, it feels ironic to say we were lucky when our baby’s heart stopped on Christmas Eve,” said Ortiz, 40. After receiving medication, Ortiz delivered the baby stillborn, and then had to have emergency surgery.
Ortiz told her story at campaign events, in op-eds, and in an advertisement that aired on broadcast television 800 times. It was viewed on digital platforms over 30 million times, according to the campaign for the amendment.
Ortiz’s story reached women who shared similar, but unique, experiences. In those stories and sharing her own, Ortiz found catharsis after physical and emotional pain.
“I felt a sense of failure,” she said. “I failed to be able to carry a child to term, and it was devastating to me because I had hoped for that child for a long time. It’s hard to open up to people about that, because you’re sharing what happened to you and then also the fears that you had, and the feeling of powerlessness.”
Casting her vote for Proposition 139, she said, “felt like taking back some of that power.”
Election 2024: See Arizona election results
Proposition 139’s victory ends 2 years of uncertainty
The Arizona Abortion Access Act amends the state constitution to add a fundamental right to an abortion. It makes plain that no government entity can restrict abortion before a fetus is viable outside the uterus, a determination made by a health care provider. Viability is around 24 weeks of pregnancy, but subject to a variety of factors, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
That timeframe is what was permitted under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, a 50-year-old precedent that was overturned in 2022. After the point at which a fetus is viable, the Arizona amendment allows abortions when necessary to protect the life, physical or mental health of the pregnant person.
In Arizona, that court ruling two years ago left confusion between a pair of conflicting laws, and temporarily stopped clinics from providing abortions as courts worked out what was legal in the state.
Then came a blockbuster April decision, when the Arizona Supreme Court said a near-total ban on abortion that threatened providers with prison time could be enforced. The 4-2 ruling left Arizona with one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, a law that first appeared in 1864, before Arizona was a state. The decision propelled a handful of Republican lawmakers to join their Democratic peers and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to quickly repeal the ban.
Abortion access advocates have used that ruling in an unprecedented campaign to oust two Arizona Supreme Court justices who voted with the majority, and those elections could offer another measure of voter anger over the curtailing of abortion rights.
Ultimately, the ruling supercharged the campaign for abortion rights, which argued abortion access was better determined by Arizona families than politicians — or court decisions.
The act was largely expected to pass, with polls showing overwhelming support in the months leading up to Nov. 5.
Arizona abortion rights advocates set spending record
For the second election in a row, abortion was a top issue, and one that Democrats hoped would turn out voters and potentially propel their candidates to victory up and down the ballot.
Ten states had pro-abortion access measures on the ballot this year, and most appeared to be passing in results early Wednesday.
Abortion rights advocates in those states have typically banked a huge fundraising advantage over their opposition, allowing them to reach more voters and drown out criticisms.
Arizona’s campaign spent $31.5 million as of mid-October, more than ever before in support of a ballot measure, according to state campaign finance records. The opposing campaign had spent just shy of $1 million.
A coalition of groups supporting the Arizona amendment campaigned for more than a year, gathered a record-breaking number of signatures to qualify for the ballot, and spent millions urging Arizonans to show up and vote yes. The groups are the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, Reproductive Freedom for All, Affirm Sexual and Reproductive Health, Arizona List, and Healthcare Rising Arizona.
Arizona for Abortion Access, the political committee for the coalition’s campaign, said the constitutional amendment removed government and politicians from a healthcare decision better left to families and a medical provider.
“A fundamental right to abortion is part of the Arizona Constitution once and for all,” Chris Love, a spokesperson for the campaign and senior adviser to Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, said in a statement. “Next time the nation wonders how much government interference in reproductive healthcare is acceptable, or what type of arbitrary abortion ban is popular, they can look at Arizona and know the answer is ‘none’.”
Opponents to the amendment have said exceptions after viability would allow abortion up to birth. Arizona’s Catholic bishops feared the amendment would create “virtually unrestricted abortion.” And It Goes Too Far, an organized opposition campaign, said the measure could invalidate other existing abortion restrictions, like requiring a doctor to provide abortion care, making it unsafe for women and girls.
“I fear for the girls who will be left alone with do-it-yourself abortions, without medical doctor oversight and safeguards, without their parents’ knowledge and guidance, and without knowing the risks involved,” Leisa Brug, campaign manager for It Goes Too Far said in a statement. “And I grieve the many senseless abortions to come, especially those done after the fetus can survive outside the womb.”
Proponents acknowledged some of Arizona’s roughly 40 other abortion laws might not be legal if the amendment passes, but also said that would not change health care providers’ obligation to provide the best care to their patients.
Those laws, among other things, create a waiting period by requiring an ultrasound 24 hours before an abortion, ban telehealth and require parental consent for minors seeking an abortion.
The amendment will go into effect after the statewide canvass on Nov. 25 and once the governor issues a proclamation it is the law in Arizona.
Hobbs has been an outspoken supporter of the amendment, and her proclamation is expected to come quickly.
‘Safer to be a woman in Arizona’
Change cannot come soon enough for mothers like Kristin Gambardella.
Gambardella and her husband found out they were pregnant with their second child in 2023. In the second trimester, doctors revealed there were medical anomalies that required risky surgery. And then, her daughter would “live a short life full of pain, and surgeries, and constant medical care,” said Gambardella, of Tucson.
“I wanted this pregnancy to continue more than anything,” she said. Already past 15 weeks, the couple traveled to New Mexico to end their pregnancy.
Gambardella described the stress and pain of traveling hours for an abortion at an October event in support of the amendment. At the abortion clinic, she remembered, protesters outside said they could save her child.
“They couldn’t,” she said, “I couldn’t.”
Ortiz believes there is more work to do, because of the restrictions on abortions that are still on Arizona’s books and the reverberating impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling two years ago.
“The chipping away of these rights on a state level has been going on for decades,” she said. “There are people here who have worked on this for decades. I think honestly that the fight isn’t necessarily over.”
But that changed course on Tuesday.
“It will be much safer to be a woman in Arizona,” Ortiz said. “It will be much safer to get pregnant, and I think that that is really important for all of us.”
This story will be updated as election results are reported.
Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669.
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Publish date : 2024-11-06 12:40:00
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