The nation’s highest court destroyed reproductive rights by overturning Roe v. Wade in a ruling issued today.
| Many thanks to DGT’s volunteer video editor Mallory Riegger, a precinct committee person in LD18. |
Kris Mayes, the Democratic candidate for Arizona Attorney General, spoke at an evening Salon sponsored by Democrats of Greater Tucson on June 23, 2022. The program was “Women’s Rights are Under Threat” and the speakers included attorney Dianne Post, Mayes and medical professor Dr. Holly Bullock.
“Today the Supreme court overturned Roe and say that there’s no federal constitutionally protected right to abortion, but then they’re going to kick it back to the states,” Mayes said. However, she said abortion will still be legal in Arizona because of extremely strong privacy language in the state constitution saying, “It states no person shall be disturbed in his private affairs” in Article 2 Section 8.
“Let’s just pause on that for a moment, private affairs, what could be more private than how we what we do with our bodies, right?” Mayes said.
She said adamantly that as Attorney General, she will not enforce anti-abortion laws. “I will fight subpoenas that are issued and I’ll fight in court to quash subpoenas that are issued to doctors, nurses, physicians, assistants, pharmacists, midwives, doulas women related to reproductive services in order to protect their privacy as well.
“I also plan to establish a crisis legal hotline inside the attorney General’s office so that we can advise women and families who are the subject of legal harassment by law enforcement agencies seeking to prosecute them and provide information about their digital privacy and also provide information about nonprofits that are assisting women in counties where access to reproductive care and abortion is being disrupted,” Mayes said.
Equal Rights Amendment
The full text of the Equal Rights Amendment:Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification. |
Activist and attorney Dianne Post urged Democrats to call their US Senators and Congressmen to approve H.J.Res.17, and the matching Senate bill S.J.Res.1, both of which remove the deadline for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The requisite 38 states have ratified the ERA as of January 27, 2020, however, the deadline for ratification was June 30, 1982 deadline.
Legal scholars say that including the ERA in the Constitution as the 28th Amendment will make anti-abortion laws unenforceable.
“Every single amendment that has expanded constitutional rights to vulnerable groups has been attacked. Every one has been attacked. So we expected that it would be attacked,” Post said.
Self-managing abortions
Dr. Holly Bullock said many women are self-managing abortions outside the healthcare system. She is an obstetrician and gynecologist in Tucson and teaches medical students at the University of Arizona.
She said, “We’re awaiting the Supreme Court decision to come down. People were crying because they know what they need to do, the decision that they are making for themselves and their families and just not knowing. Our contingency plan is to help people get to California where we have our affiliate in Southern California (where abortion is legal).”
Dr. Bullock added, “40% of abortions even now are medication abortions and people can get medications outside the healthcare system. They can get abortion pills through the mail. People can even get one of the medications just over the counter in Mexico. And so as things change, we truly anticihttps://thedgt.org/pate that abortion access in half of the country is going to be curtailed and that’ll affect Arizona as well, but that we’re going to see people self-managing abortions outside of the healthcare system.”
“This is safe. I’m providing people resources so that they can access this and then know when to seek out help. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working with my OB-GYN colleagues to train our urgent care colleagues and our emergency department colleagues to know that after an abortion is the same thing as a miscarriage.”
She called on Democrats to make donations to the Tucson Abortion Support Collective. “This is a mutual aid society that has made up of our community members that are taking care of our community members. If you want to donate, give even just a dollar to this group,” she said. “This group helps people with transportation to clinics helps even with translation services. If it’s not something that we have on hand, they’ve even babysat some of my patient’s children while my patient went to go get an abortion procedure they’ve helped with pregnancy tests, they help with emergency contraception and they’ve helped people get out of state.
