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Editor’s Note: This article previously inaccurately stated that Katarina White, from Arizona Right to Life, was among the speakers at the October 4 press conference. The article was corrected on October 14.
CV NEWS FEED // Pro-life leaders across the political spectrum are warning that Arizona’s Prop 139 would allow abortionists to kill the unborn at any stage of pregnancy, enshrining abortion in the state constitution and upending Arizona’s current 15-week pro-life law.
At a press conference in Phoenix on October 4, the No On Prop 139 campaign, together with Moms for America, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), and Secular Pro-Life denounced the extreme abortion agenda being pushed on Arizona’s November ballot with Prop 139 and the Harris presidential campaign.
Press conference speakers spanned the political spectrum, and included Mayra Rodriguez, Moms For America Arizona’s state director; Terrisa Bukovinac, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising’s founder; Monica Snyder, Secular Pro-Life’s executive director, and Josh Barnett, a former Arizona State Senate candidate.
“Harris is directly responsible for hiding evidence of infanticide and the unjust persecution of peaceful anti-abortion activists including grandmothers and concentration camp survivors, who have been arrested and imprisoned and sometimes at gunpoint,” an email press release from Moms For America Action stated.
“Prop 139 is an extension of the extremism promised by Harris when she vows to enshrine unrestricted abortion into the US constitution if elected,” the press release added. “This ballot initiative, if passed, would allow a physician with a financial interest in selling abortion services to commit an abortion at any point in pregnancy — something even most Democrats oppose.”
The proposal’s text would amend the state constitution to include a “fundamental right to abortion that the state of Arizona may not interfere with before the point of fetal viability (defined as the point of pregnancy when there is significant chance of the survival of the fetus outside of the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures) unless justified by a compelling state interest (defined as a law or regulation enacted for the limited purpose of improving or maintaining the health of the individual seeking abortion care that does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision making).”
The Catholic bishops in Arizona have also strongly condemned the abortion amendment.
“If passed, this initiative threatens to enshrine a constitutional right to virtually unrestricted abortion in Arizona,” they declared in an August 30 statement. “What makes a constitutional amendment especially grave is that our own Arizona legislators could lose the ability to regulate abortion in any meaningful way, leaving us with the potential for what would likely become nearly unrestricted abortion.”
