Dr. Catherine Nichols, Executive Director, Arizona List
It has been two long years since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped away millions of people’s freedom to choose for themselves when and how they want to have a family. And so, abortion will be top of mind for voters this November. This week, Vice President Kamala Harris provided unwavering leadership in our collective fight to protect and restore abortion rights. Yet again, she came here to Arizona and shared a strong message to a fired-up crowd of women voters.
Vice President Harris gave advice that all elected officials should listen to: “Always on public policy, sit back and ask yourself how this will impact a real person.” She described the obstacles that thousands of women across the country now face when trying to access reproductive care and reminded the crowd that these bans disproportionately affect women of color: 40% of Latinas of reproductive age live in a state with an abortion ban and the majority of Black women live in the South, where abortion bans have become the norm. This is not the freedom that we expect as Americans.
“That’s why we fight, and that’s why stand together and say ‘we’re not having this,’” Harris proclaimed to cheers from the crowd. And let us be clear, this message resonates with all voters. After 90 events in 21 states since the Dobbs decision, she knows that the reproductive freedom movement is strong, energized, and bipartisan.
We thank the Vice President for showing real leadership. Hours before she spoke in Phoenix, the Vice President spoke about abortion nationally: “Fundamentally, on this issue, it’s about freedom.” At a rally earlier this year, at South Mountain Community Center, she declared “freedom is not to be given or bestowed, it is ours by right.” The clarity that Vice President Harris brings to the issue of abortion as an issue of personal freedom sends a strong signal to Arizonans that she understands that women, rather than politicians, should be in the driver’s seat for our most personal decisions.
Arizona needs clear and brave leadership on reproductive rights. Just this past April, Arizonans were haunted by the potential enforcement of a draconian law from 1864 that would enact a total ban on abortion and set the state back over a hundred years. Luckily, strong legislators—Representative Stephanie Stahl Hamliton (LD20) and Senator Anna Hernandez (LD 24)—authored and passed a repeal that was signed by Governor Katie Hobbs, yet we still live under a restrictive ban passed by the Republican legislature that limits access to reproductive health care in Arizona. The stakes for reproductive freedom in November’s election are extraordinary.
We live in a country where eight in 10 Americans– a resounding majority– believe that decisions about abortion belong between a patient and their doctor. When it comes to other forms of reproductive freedom, including IVF and birth control, it is clear where the public stands: seven in ten adults, including a majority of independents and Republicans, say IVF access is a good thing, and three out of four Americans say that birth control pills should be easier to access. Through visits to Arizona and across the country as part of her Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour, Vice President Harris is centering the actual people impacted by Trump and the draconian agenda that Republican legislators supported. As we reflect on the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, she reminds us who is responsible for the nightmare that millions of women and families now face.
Arizona is one of the states that will determine the outcome of the election in November. Voters across our state should listen to the Vice President’s warnings about what will happen if abortion is not our top issue. We need to rally to her call to fight for our fundamental freedoms–for the sake of women today and generations to come.