‘I don’t want to be in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’’: Abortion access drives Arizona delegates to get out the vote

Arizona currently bans abortions after 15 weeks unless there’s a medical emergency for the mother.

CHICAGO – Democrats in Arizona view the fight over reproductive rights as a key to victory in November. The strategy is front and center at the Democratic National Convention, too.

One hard-to-miss symbol is the 20-foot inflatable IUD outside the United Center, where thousands of delegates are gathering this week to rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

“This issue is going to help us from the top of the ticket to the bottom of the ticket,” said state Sen. Eva Burch, D-Mesa, one of the state party’s delegates in Chicago. “I’m talking not only about the presidential race and our local legislative races, but also when it comes to judges and to other local elections, to city councils.”

“We really can drive turnout with these issues that are important to people,” she said.

RELATED: Abortion will be on the ballot in Arizona. Here’s what to know

Arizona currently bans abortions after 15 weeks unless there’s a medical emergency for the mother. A measure that would expand access to 24 weeks – with the option to end the pregnancy to protect physical and mental health – will be on the November ballot as Proposition 139. If voters approve, that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Nicole Brown, a delegate from Tempe who is a small business owner, said she’s excited for abortion to be on the ballot and to support Harris, who promotes abortion rights.

“I feel like it’s my right to choose, as a woman, what I do with my body,” Brown said. “I feel like with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, that we’re going forward, not backwards.

“I don’t want to be in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’” she said, referring to the dystopian novel and TV series about a future in which fertile women are enslaved and forced to bear children.

Mayor Regina Romero of Tucson, also a Democratic delegate, said the drive to protect abortion access will “play a big role” in bolstering turnout.

“I believe that in Arizona it’s going to make a huge difference to get out the vote to make sure that we have young people and women turning out to vote for Vice President Harris” and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Romero said.

Harris and other Democrats warn that former President Donald Trump would drastically curb access to abortion and even to contraception if he wins a second term.

Outside the convention hall in Chicago, a Planned Parenthood mobile health clinic served as another reminder of Democrats’ stance, along with the giant IUD – an inflatable replica of an intrauterine device dubbed “Freeda Womb” that has toured the country to spotlight the fight over contraceptive access.

In April, the state’s highest court ruled that a near-total abortion ban enacted in 1864 – decades before statehood and before women had the right to vote – became enforceable again when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in June 2022.

The landmark ruling had protected abortion access nationwide since 1973.

The Legislature repealed the 1864 ban within weeks, with few Republican votes. Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, signed the repeal.

“We’re saying, ‘Look, the Republican legislative majority has put more abortion bans in place, and the Democratic majority would protect your reproductive freedoms and remove those abortion bans and anything that gets in the way of your own decision-making,’” said state Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, also a delegate.

Signa Oliver, a delegate from Phoenix who is a retiree, helped collect signatures for Proposition 139.

“I have a 5-year-old granddaughter that has less rights than her ‘GG’ right now, and that is unacceptable,” Oliver said. “So I will fight until I have no breath, until I have no strength, to make sure that what she chooses to do with her body, it is her choice. We don’t need legislators telling us what to do with our body.”

Oliver recalled the days before Roe.

“We’re not going back to that ever. That is done,” she said. “So I believe that this initiative being on the ballot is going to bring out a bunch of pissed off women and men that support us.”