‘I don’t care what the medically accurate term is’: Arizona lawmakers sued for using biased language in voter pamphlet

The publicity pamphlet for a citizen-led ballot initiative to constitutionally protect abortion in Arizona referred to fetuses as “unborn human beings.”

TL;DR: The group Arizona for Abortion Access is suing state lawmakers, after those lawmakers allegedly chose to use misleading, biased language in an election pamphlet. The pamphlet is required by law to be created as a means to inform Arizona voters about what will be on their ballots. The law also says that the language used in the pamphlet must be impartial.

However, the Republican-majority committee overseeing the pamphlet chose to use medically inaccurate language to describe the Arizona Abortion Access Act—a ballot measure that voters will be considering at the polls.

The lawsuit is asking the Maricopa County Superior Court for an order requiring that the committee change the term “unborn human” to impartial, medically accurate language, such as “embryo” and “fetus.”

WHO’S INVOLVED: The Arizona Legislative Council is a committee within the state Legislature. One of its functions is to oversee the production of election pamphlets for voters. The people on the committee are state senators and representatives. On July 8, the Council met at the Capitol in Phoenix to decide what language to use in the 2024 election pamphlet.

Arizona for Abortion Access is a group of Arizona citizens who launched a campaign for a ballot measure to be added to the November election. That ballot measure would allow Arizona voters to decide whether to add an amendment to the state constitution, protecting the right to abortion in Arizona.

SPARKS FLEW AT MEETING: During the Council’s meeting, Austin Yost, an attorney representing the Arizona for Abortion Access campaign, said using the term fetus would be more neutral and medically accurate because that is the term used by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Mayo Clinic.

“I don’t care what the medically accurate term is,” said Arizona Rep. Ben Toma, a Republican.

LAWSUIT FILED JULY 10: Cherly Bruce, campaign manager for Arizona Abortion Access, said the organization filed the lawsuit to hold politicians accountable and to ensure that voters receive an impartial summary of the ballot measure.

“The very same legislators who instituted the extreme abortion ban currently in place…are now trying to put their thumbs on the electoral scale to confuse voters,” Bruce said.

Dr. Candace Lew, an OB-GYN and a campaign chairwoman, said medical accuracy is important.

“If we don’t adhere to medically accurate terms, we allow partisan, political, and undefined rhetoric to spread confusion and possibly spread misinformation, which doesn’t lead to quality patient-centered health care,” Lew said.

THE BALLOT MEASURE: To get the ballot measure into the November election, Arizona for Abortion Access needed around 380,000 signatures of support from Arizona voters. Earlier this month, they turned in more than 800,000. Read more about the ballot measure here.

Since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, similar ballot measures have been introduced by citizens in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, and Ohio. Voters have overwhelmingly passed those measures in every state.

BACKGROUND INFO: Arizona residents have had their abortion care rights taken away and returned multiple times since the Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That decision removed federal protections for abortions, and left regulating reproductive health care up to state governments.

Arizona has a slim Republican majority in the state Legislature, and those lawmakers have made it clear that their goal is to criminalize abortion—even going so far as to reverse residents’ rights to those first established in 1864, before Arizona was a state.

VIDEO: Gov. Hobbs signs bill repealing Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban