Even after Arizona constitutional amendment, abortion is still a campaign issue, Gov. Hobbs says

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs says abortion access will again be a focus of her campaign as she vies for reelection in the fall.

Hobbs marked the 53rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision Thursday by accepting an endorsement from the abortion rights organization Reproductive Freedom for All.

Hobbs, a Democrat, told supporters that although Arizona voters in 2024 overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, the Republican majority in the state Legislature is still pushing to restrict abortion.

“It is clear that people in our state still want to attack that right,” Hobbs said. “The rights that we think we have sometimes are only on paper and it’s up to us to make sure that we keep those rights.”

GOP lawmakers so far this session have put forward bills to limit state funding from going to providers who make referrals for abortion services, prohibit abortion providers from speaking or distributing materials in public schools, and impose harsher penalties for sending abortion medications by mail.

Hobbs described herself as a check to efforts to limit abortion access.

After Arizona voters approved the constitutional amendment, allowing abortion to about 24 weeks, a judge permanently blocked an Arizona law that had banned abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. But legal and political battles continue over several other remaining abortion regulations in the state.

Arizona law bans prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine and bans abortions when fetal abnormalities have been diagnosed. And, to get an abortion, Arizona patients must have an ultrasound and they must wait at least a day after their first visit with a doctor.

Arizona Democrats in the state Legislature are again this year sponsoring bills to repeal those restrictions. But similar bills last year did not pass in the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit is underway to overturn the same group of regulations. Two top Republican state lawmakers, House Speaker Steve Montenegro and Senate President Warren Petersen are defending the laws as intervenors in the case. Their attorneys argue Arizona’s numerous abortion regulations do not prohibit abortion and are necessary to keep patients safe and well-informed.

But Reproductive Freedom for All and other abortion rights groups say the laws are burdensome, medically unnecessary, and unconstitutional under the state’s new abortion rights amendment.

Reproductive Freedom for All director of Arizona campaigns Athena Salman said if Democrats were in the majority in Arizona’s state Legislature, the regulations would likely have quickly been overturned after voters approved the amendment.

“That case could already have been resolved,” Salman said.