by doing your part to put “Arizona for Abortion Access” on the 2024 ballot
This article was originally published by David Fitzsimmons with Arizona’s Progressive Voice.
AUG 9, 2023
Right-Wing Arizonans are on a mission from God to take away a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy at any cost.
No matter the cost to your Constitutional rights.
No matter the toll of misery inflicted on the women of Arizona.
By rolling back the right of women to control their own bodies Arizona’s gun ‘n’ Bible-totin’ Taliban from beyond the tumbleweeds have given the People untold suffering, grief, confusion, pain and hardship. And cause for a profound abiding outrage that will forever change our state come the Fall of ‘24.
Arizonans like you are fed up and they’re lining up and signing up to reject this insult to the women Arizona.
Ohio stood up for the rights of women on Tuesday night. Will you stand up for the rights of women in Arizona in 2024?
Ohio’s fanatical Anti-Choice MAGA-nauts forgot their sole noble purpose was to represent the will of the People of their state. Instead, the mad mullahs of middle America chose to enforce the will of the most repressive minority of zealots to march out of the middle ages since the Inquisition. When these divinely inspired anti-democratic despots tried to limit the right of Ohio voters to amend their Constitution they stepped right in front of a speeding train called the 21st Century and found themselves flatter than a Lincoln penny on the wrong side of history.
Note to the Far Bizarre Right: Your dumb ass move, going Stalin-esque to inflict your maddening moral hypocrisy on the masses pissed off the People of Ohio.
The People of Ohio rose up and settled the debate the Supreme Court triggered in their state when it ruled on Roe. The People of Ohio rejected small-town fascism and fanaticism and voted for democracy, clearing the way for them to vote to protect every woman’s right to choose.
If you think America is ever going back to the Dark Ages, dear loser, you are a loser lost on the losing side of history, ignoring the 21st Century express coming your way. And it is coming down the tracks heading straight for Arizona.
Here then is the shocking revelation rocking the Kens of this world today: Most Americans believe women can make healthcare decisions for themselves. In poll after poll roughly three out of every four Americans think women should have the right to control their own bodies. The remaining 1/4th of Americans think men in red MAGA hats should be in charge of the bodies of our womenfolk. And, in their minds, they all live in Gilead. Where abortions are not legal and will never be rare nor safe.
Beginning now, Arizonans, like you and like myself, can begin the work of enshrining a woman’s right to choose in our state’s Constitution. Here is how you can join the many Arizonans who are sick of a small rabid minority controlling reproductive healthcare for all women.
I asked Jodi Ligget, Founder of the Arizona Center for Women’s Advancement, and a senior adviser for NARAL Arizona, how citizens can help collect signatures. Here’s the answer. Click on this link and sign up:
Organizing an effort of this scale, putting “Arizona for Abortion Access” on the 2024 ballot, calls for teamwork.
Here are the significant players constituting the team working to amend your state’s Constitution to enshrine a woman’s right to choose: the ACLU of Arizona, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, NARAL Arizona, Affirm Sexual and Reproductive Health, Arizona List and Healthcare Rising Arizona.
Volunteer today. Pass petitions, free the women of Arizona from 2nd Class Legal Status and be proud you changed history.
And for this Progressive there’s a bonus to putting this to the voters in 2024. As we saw in Kansas, and now in Ohio, abortion on the ballot gets voters to the polls. As it should. If abortion bans and Donald Trump both go down in 2024 it will be a historic victory for women and for democracy.
What’s the deadline for filing this petition? It must be filed by early next summer, July 3, 2024. That’s nearly a year to collect the signatures. Should be a snap.
Them’s the rules: The Rules
If you want to see this question put to Arizona’s voters you and I must collect 383,923 valid signatures from Arizona’s registered voters.
When Arizona’s extreme self-righteous right-wing minority jumped at the chance to ban abortions I knew they were driven and delusional. They could not resist the opportunity to over reach. The will of you, the People of Arizona, be damned.
I have news for Arizona’s cave dwellers who gerrymandered their way out of the Pleistocene and into power. A majority of Arizonans are done with you and your tiny tribe of tyrants. We’re done with your gaggle of Elmer Gantrys and Tammy Fayes in Ten-Gallon hats aching, longing and lusting after the power to control our lives and our bodies.
I wouldn’t be surprised if by next July Arizona for Abortion Access delivers a stack of 500,000 valid signatures. Make it 1,000,000.
Jodi Ligget said the cost of this effort should run $40-50-million. That’s the real world, friends. Affecting enduring positive change takes more than pocket change in 2024. The abortion access alliance will be contributing to this statewide effort and there will be grassroots fundraising. We’ll have more to come on that.
Why do this? I’m motivated by the Anti-Choice voices in Arizona. Heed this one:
“The ACLU and the abortion lobby’s extreme and barbaric vision for Arizona aligns with their own radical agenda to eliminate parental rights and eliminate any protection for the unborn, that’s not what Arizonans believe.”
That’s Maria Birnbaum. She’s Arizona’s field director for the anti-abortion group “Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America”.
Think it’s your uterus? You’re barbaric.
Think reproduction is your business? You’re extreme. And radical.
What prehistoric playland do these pious posers inhabit? In their minds, dear Barbie, your uterus is the property of the state of Arizona. And that private part of your corporeal self should be controlled entirely by your legislature of cracker barrel crackpots and dim-witted Kens in bolo ties, when they’re not working for the good people of our state hunting down the delinquent who hid the Bible that was in their sacred lounge or banning books and drag shows or making life a living Hell for trans children.
And when it comes to your reproductive freedom you know they are not stopping until all abortion is criminalized.
Join the fight of our lives this year.
Join the fight to remind the unschooled that prohibitions never succeed. Not in our America. Isn’t it time for those who howl the word “Freedom!” the loudest over our heads to be taught the word’s meaning?
Here are the direct website links of the groups joining hands to drag Arizona into the 21st Century. Link arms, march for “Good Trouble” and sign on with one today:
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona
Affirm Sexual and Reproductive Health
And one more thing. Mark your calendars for July 3rd, 2024.
That’s July three.
Next summer.
The day we, the People of Arizona, make history.