Arizona voters will decide this November whether to add abortion rights into their state constitution, a prospect that could turbocharge voter turnout in a critical battleground state in the 2024 election.
Late Monday, the Arizona secretary of state’s office announced that it had validated an estimated 577,971 signatures in support of a ballot measure, the Arizona For Abortion Access Act, to establish a constitutional right to abortion in the state.
On X, the office called the measure “the largest petition effort in Arizona history”. The measure will be listed on the ballot as Proposition 139.
An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. The guy I’m answering to is demanding either abortion with no restrictions or no abortion at all. So it is first of all not about what is happening, but about what would be allowed to happen. Abortion with no restrictions would make this generally legal.
That is not the definition of an abortion otherwise a birth would be considered an abortion. An induced labor at 9 months would be a birth. We already have laws on the books to prosecute people who kill live individuals.
The reason there should not be restrictions is because we do not need law enforcement analyzing every fucking later term abortion. Only 1% are at or past 21 weeks and the majority of those are at 21 weeks. The ones that occur after are from women who do absolutely want a child but there are complications with the fetus or the mother’s health. These women should not have to fear being arrested because they are aborting a non viable fetus which they will likely spend thousands of dollars to do. And if you think that is an unlikely scenario where the police would make an arrest, I have some bad news for you: women have been arrested for miscarriages. Hell, one woman was arrested after being shot caused her to miscarry.
So no, no restrictions.
So how do you define an abortion if not as a termination of pregnancy? The reasons you gave in my eyes are rather reasons to reform the American police system. How would police even know of a miscarriage or an abortion? Most countries have duty of confidentiality for medical staff?
Also there is still a difference between restriction and prosecution and restrictions can be more or less restrictive. If there are medical complications an abortion shall always be allowed and if not in my opinion only up to a certain point into the pregnancy. Starting at somewhere around 23 weeks a fetus is able to survive outside of the womb, so besides medical reasons I’d set a cut somewhere there.
Wait are you not American? Have you been following what the conservatives in America have been doing?
They’ve taken any common sense rule and stretched it to the breaking point. And after Roe v. Wade was struck they’ve made abortion completely illegal in large swaths of America.
They have several ways to find out. They’ve mandated hospitals to report any they find out about with stiff penalties for not doing so. Doctors are liable for 99 year prison sentences for performing one. Anyone can inform the police if someone they know is suddenly not pregnant anymore. Anyone can sue a former pregnant woman and she cannot get her legal fees paid for even if she proves it was a miscarriage. This all includes penalties for getting an abortion out of state.
Before Roe v Wade was struck they passed law after law to make it as hard as possible to get an abortion before the 22 week cut off. Including waiting periods meant to artificially delay things and run out the clock and closing down places you could get an abortion until some states had only one or two clinics in the entire state. Then they also funded “pregnancy crisis centers”, whose entire purpose was to obfuscate the entire process.
So yeah some people want no legal restrictions because the conservatives have proven they can’t be trusted with them.
Nope not American. I heard about the most important points, but did not go in too deeply.
I think with the detailed background I get the point of no restrictions. But it still rather feels like working on the symptoms and not the cause.
Yeah we get that. But working on the cause is going to take a bit longer. It requires some reforms that our system is set up to make really hard. For now treating the symptoms is about all we can do.