This conservative is supporting Democrats and Prop 139 in 2024 because of the GOP’s abortion bans

“I began to see the things that were happening at our state Legislature, and [I] realized that we were slowly becoming a state that was going to dictate to women what we can do with our bodies.”

The first presidential election Peggy Neely voted in was in 1976—the year Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated her chosen candidate, Republican incumbent Gerald Ford.

Since then, the former Phoenix city councilmember and 2011 mayoral candidate has been a reliable Republican voter—until 2020, when she cast her vote for Democrat Joe Biden.

“We didn’t have a good Republican presidential [candidate],” Neely said. “Trump is a TV celebrity, and he worked as though he was a TV celebrity when he was in office. He did not believe that issues that were important to the average person mattered.”

“We began to see how the [Republican] party is no longer a party of consensus. It’s a party of dictation,” she said.

Neely’s support for Democrats in 2024 isn’t a matter of changing her principles—she’s not a liberal. It’s her conservative values, she says, that are driving her decision to vote against any politician in Arizona who’s trying to take rights away from residents.

“If you happen to fall on the line that you voted to take away our rights, I’m not voting for you,” Neely said.

She was especially moved by the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Combined with several resulting state reactions, it was a tipping point in her turn away from the modern GOP.

“[Republican politicians] have almost come to the point where they want to track a woman that might be pregnant to see if she’s leaving the state. And to me, that’s absolutely wrong. My body, my choice,” Neely said.

“I think that’s what made me finally say ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

It’s common sense, then, that she’s voting yes on Proposal 139 this November.

Prop 139 is a ballot measure that will allow Arizonans to vote on whether or not abortion should be legal in the state. If passed with a YES vote, Prop 139 would constitutionally protect abortion before fetal viability. (Fetal viability is when a fetus can survive outside of the uterus—typically around 24 weeks into a pregnancy.) It would also prohibit penalties against health care providers who offer the procedure, and would give them the protection to do what is medically appropriate.

Prop 139 would also remove current laws or prevent future laws that would penalize health care providers for offering or performing abortion care.

“As a Republican, we always believed in freedoms,” Neely said. “And it seems that the reproductive rights issue has become an issue (for me) because we’re taking people’s rights away.”

RELATED: Here’s every proposition on the Arizona ballot this year and what they do

Prop 139 received widespread support during its petition phase in Arizona, when a record-number of voters signed in favor of placing the decision on the November ballot.

Reproductive freedom has been in flux in Arizona since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and a Republican majority in the state Legislature began working to roll back abortion care to pre-statehood restrictions.

Earlier this year, the conservative-majority Arizona Supreme Court announced the reinstatement of an 1864 law that criminalized abortion care of any kind at any point in a pregnancy, except to save the life of the mother. The law also carried with it a criminal penalty of at least two years in prison for any medical provider who performed an abortion.

Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King, who both ruled in favor of reinstating the Civil War-era abortion ban, are facing judicial retention elections this November.

The Arizona Legislature repealed the 1864 abortion ban within a month of the court decision, with the repeal passing both the state Senate and state House of Representatives almost entirely along party lines. The current law bans abortions after 15 weeks. with no exceptions for victims of sexual assault.

Every seat in the state Legislature is up for election on Nov. 5. See who’s on your ballot here, and check your voter registration here.