Two Proposed Ballot Measures
for 2024
1. Abortion Access Amendment
2. Minimum Wage Increase Initiative
For the full list of referendums we’re tracking, see our home page.
Abortion Access Amendment
HOPED FOR BALLOT: NOVEMBER 5. 2024
See Ballotpedia page for more information and updates.
Current status: Signatures being gathered. Due date: July 5, 2024.
We regard a “no” vote as helpful to the goal of ending violence.
This is one of several trying to establish a state constitutional right to abortion, so that the legislature couldn’t move to do further restrictions.
Disability Rights
However, Arizona currently has a limit of 15 weeks, so the initiative would get rid of this and move the upper limit to fetal viability. This means that the immediate impact would be legalizing very late-term abortions. See our topic page on how this damages more than the unborn child:
Disability Rights and Late-Term Abortions
This includes a three-minute video that can be used in social media (copy the embed code), and links to studies that show what harm is inflicted on the disability rights community.
Abortion isn’t Freedom for Women
Setting aside the violence (and therefore lack of equal protection) done to unborn children, a point which proponents of this measure steadfastly ignore, the rhetoric they use about women also steadfastly ignores harm done. Here are some of the Consistent Life Network’s blog posts that explain this. They can offer good ideas for opponents of this measure to use in their work:
Abortion and Violence Against Pregnant Women
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture
The Message of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”: Abortion Gets Sexual Predators Off the Hook
Abortion Facilitates Sex Abuse: Documentation
Specific to Arizona:
Planned Parenthood Whistleblower Awarded $3M, Ending Wrongful Termination Case by Brianna Smith, August 23, 2019
Sexual Abuse Documentation
Planned Parenthood found negligent in reporting girl’s abortion,
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
On May 5, the Sheriff’s Office asked the Arizona Department of Health Services to look into Planned Parenthood’s handling of a 15-year-old girl who claimed Kost had raped and impregnated her. On April 17, the girl’s mother told detectives that clinicians said they “did not want the hassle” of reporting the assault, according to a police report filed in court.
[Court case: STATE OF ARIZONA V. TYLER KOST– CRIMINAL CASE Pinal County Superior Court, Case No. CR201400949]
Health Violation Documents
Find documents at:
Problems of Planned Parenthood – Arizona
Flagstaff
Highlights from 2016 document:
The facility failed to properly sterilize instruments and textiles that “may come in contact with a patients’ blood and internal tissue.” Using unsterilized, dirty instruments on multiple women has the potential to spread infection.
Glendale
Highlights from 2015 and 2020 documents:
The facility used expired medications on patients. Some were two years past their expiration dates.
Staff failed to perform required spore tests on the autoclaves (machines used to sterilize instruments). This could lead to “a potential risk of cross contamination and infection to their patients” according to the report.
Staff failed to properly maintain, clean, and sterilize the autoclaves as per the manufacturer’s instructions. There was no documentation that the autoclaves were cleaned on a weekly or even monthly basis.
When blood dripped from a used speculum onto the floor, staff was observed wiping it up with paper towels and cleaning spray rather than using bleach and properly disinfecting the floor.
Hazardous chemicals weren’t properly labeled.
Staff didn’t properly clean and disinfect post-procedure specimen bottles.
Staff failed to clean and sanitize examination tables between patients.
According to the report, these omissions, “have the potential for non-sterile instruments or non-disinfected supplies to be utilized on patients.”
There was no designated infection control person assigned to the infection control position, no one whose job is specifically to ensure that cleanliness and proper sterilization practices were followed.
There were multiple tears and punctures in the upholstered material of an examination table, exposing stuffing. This presents an infection risk as it makes the surface difficult or impossible to properly disinfect.
A patient had an adverse reaction to sedation administered before a procedure. She suffered severely low blood pressure. This wasn’t reported to the medical director or recorded in the procedure notes. The RN who administered the sedation wasn’t licensed to do so. When asked to show what protocols were in place for treating patients suffering severe hypotension (dangerously low blood pressure) the clinic was unable to provide any. The facility also had no guidelines for what blood pressure measurements indicated severe hypotension. According to the report, the center manager “verified, during an interview conducted on 2/13/15, that there are no established blood pressure parameters for severe hypotension, standing orders, and/or facility policy that identifies the care and treatment of a patient experiencing severe hypotension after adversely reacting to a medication provided for conscious sedation.”
Tempe
Highlights from 2014 document:
Didn’t have a policy for the use, cleaning, and preventive maintenance of certain equipment used on patients, such as heating pads.
The facility appeared to be using irrigation solution (Braun 0.9% Sodium Chloride) that, by manufacturer’s standards, should’ve been discarded.
The autoclave, used to sterilize the instruments, was required to be cleaned weekly. However, the last documented cleaning was nearly three months prior to the inspection. Staff couldn’t verify the autoclave had been cleaned more recently than that.
The clinic staff failed to monitor how many cycles the autoclave was running. This was supposed to be done automatically by a printout attached to the machine. However, the paper in the printer had run out and hadn’t been replaced.
Minimum Wage Increase Initiative
HOPED FOR BALLOT: NOVEMBER 5. 2024
See Ballotpedia page for more information and updates.
Current status: Signatures being gathered. Due date: July 5, 2024.
Full text and other official information
Sponsor: Raise the Wage AZ
See our blog post: Social Programs to Help the Poor are Pro-life
PostRoeFuture.com, a statement drafted by prominent pro-life activists and signed by hundreds more, released and publicized January 19, 2023. It says that governments need “to eliminate or reduce the significant economic and social pressures that we know drive women to seek abortion in the first place. ”
Pro-life Commentary
on Minimum Wage
Pregnancy Resource Centers will have an easier time working with pregnant women for prenatal care and new mothers for women’s and children’s health care. The more women are earning, the more PRCs can help. Also, the more the father and other family members are earning, the more PRCs can help.
Yet for those who never cross paths with the PRCs, a minimum wage increase means they feel more supported in choosing life. They have more practical resources available.
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