Arizona lawmaker says she plans to get an abortion, calls state laws 'invasive'

An Arizona lawmaker shared plans to terminate her pregnancy during an emotional speech on the state Senate floor on Monday aimed at supporting a ballot measure that would enshrine the right to abortion.

Democratic State Sen. Eva Burch catalogued to colleagues on Monday the steps Arizona law required her to go through to get the abortion. She also discussed her decades long troubles to conceive, including previous miscarriages and a 2022 abortion to terminate a similar “nonviable” pregnancy.

“I don’t think people should have to justify their abortions,” Burch told lawmakers in the chamber. “But I’m choosing to talk about why I made this decision because I want us to have meaningful conversations about the reality of how the work we do in this body impacts people in the real world.”

Arizona is one of several states across the U.S. that has limited abortion access since the U.S. Supreme Court’ overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.

A 2022 law signed by former Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey banned abortion after 15 weeks, with exceptions to save the life of the mother. The law mandates that patients have a counseling session and then wait 24 hours before undergoing the procedure.

The Arizona Supreme Court is also weighing whether to reinstate a law from 1864 that imposes a near total ban on abortion. The law is still currently on the books but is not enforced. If imposed, it would make it a felony for doctors to perform an abortion. A decision from the court is expected in the coming weeks.

However, pro-abortion activists are aiming to put a ballot measure on the state’s 2024 general election ballot that, if passed, would create a constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion up to fetal viability, about 24 weeks.

The group Arizona for Abortion Access, which is organizing the effort, needs to collect 383,923 signatures by July to get the initiative on the ballot. As of January, it said it had collected more than half of those – around 250,000 signatures.

Burch, who is up for re-election, argued that Arizona’s current laws “muddy the water” and “interfered” with her decision to get an abortion. She said she was required to have an “invasive” transvaginal ultrasound deemed unnecessary by her doctor and that she was given “misinformation” about the alternatives to abortion.

“All that the legislature has done is to nurture distrust and confusion in the relationship between patients and providers,” Burch said.

“If doctors and political leaders and advocacy organizations, religious organizations, faith groups and science groups have not been able to come to any consensus about the answers to these complicated questions, then I think we can all agree the right people for that job are not here in the Arizona legislature,” she said.

She argued that voters should have the opportunity to weigh in on the issue on the ballot in November.

Abortion on the ballot

Voters in several other states are already set to weigh in on ballot initiatives related to abortion access in November, including in Maryland and New York.

Pro-abortion groups are pushing to get similar measures to the one proposed in Arizona on ballots in states such as Nevada, Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, activists have won ballot initiatives in seven states to protect access to the procedure, including Republican strongholds such as Kentucky, Montana, Kansas and Ohio.

Currently, 19 states allow abortion through viability, the standard set by Roe v. Wade.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: An Arizona lawmaker shared why she is getting an abortion