CV NEWS FEED // A judge has sided with a pro-abortion coalition that sued in Arizona to remove the term “unborn human being” from an abortion ballot pamphlet and replace it with a different term, such as “fetus.”
The coalition Arizona for Abortion Access announced the pro-abortion win in an X post on July 26: “We won the publicity pamphlet lawsuit! Arizona voters are another step closer to having our say and restoring access to abortion in our state”.
The pro-abortion initiative, Proposition 139, aims at enshrining abortion in the Arizona state constitution. News outlet AZ Mirror reported on July 24 that the Republican-majority legislative council’s draft of Prop. 139’s description for voters includes the phrase “unborn human being” in the first sentence of the draft.
As CatholicVote reported on July 17, Arizona for Abortion Access filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court in an effort to change the language on voter pamphlets about the ballot, arguing that the current term “unborn human being” is “politically charged”.
According to AZ Mirror, Arizona for Abortion Access’ attorneys advocated for the court “to order that lawmakers replace the word with the ‘medically accurate’ term ‘fetus.’”
The Republican legislators’ attorneys argued in a brief that the term “unborn human being” is based verbatim on what is currently used in Arizona’s state law regarding abortion.
The pro-abortion advocates’ attorneys argued that the term “fetus” is more impartial, and widely used and accepted by medical professionals, AZ Mirror reported. The Republican lawmakers’ attorneys argued that the medical community’s support of the phrase “‘unborn human being’ is irrelevant, because the language used in state laws is up to lawmakers to decide.”
Arizona for Abortion Access noted in its July 26 post that it expects the court’s decision to be appealed.
