A Fight to Put Abortion on Arizona’s Ballot
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 July 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the question of abortion rights became a state issue. Although Arizona was one of 26 states with so-called “zombie laws” that banned abortion when Roe was struck down, it’s also one of three states that lets its citizens write l amend the state’s constitution. Now, abortion rights activists are racing to collect more than 350,000 signatures by July 7 to put the question of abortion rights in the hands of Arizona voters.
Guest: Shasta McManus, activist and treasurer of Arizonans For Reproductive Freedom.
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Transcript
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| 0:36.9 | Shasta McManus calls herself a planner. She's worked in Democratic politics for over a decade, |
| 0:42.8 | spent six years on the board of Planned Parenthood in her adopted home state of Arizona. |
| 0:48.2 | I got her on the line because I wanted to know if she or someone she loved needed an abortion |
| 0:53.3 | right now. Did you have a plan for that? Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about, you know, this a lot. |
| 1:01.5 | Maybe because I had a friend that was pregnant and had to rush to procedure more than normal |
| 1:10.5 | and ended up getting her procedure done two days before the Supreme Court decision. |
| 1:25.1 | And we had very long discussions about what her options would be if she's decided to wait a week. |
| 1:34.8 | It was very hard to like hold someone's hand and have to, you know, have them rush. |
| 1:42.0 | Were you warning her? Were you like you should do it this week? Just because I don't know |
| 1:46.1 | what's going to happen. It wasn't necessarily a warning, but, you know, walking her through this process, |
| 1:52.4 | of course, had us thinking about what this looks like for every other pregnant person in the state. |
| 2:04.8 | Now that the decision is out, what the process looks like to get an abortion in the state of Arizona |
| 2:10.0 | is not great. It's unclear what's legal, what's not. And Chastas seen this confusion looming |
| 2:16.1 | ever since Justice Alito's draft opinion leaked in May. That's when she and some friends |
| 2:21.2 | started talking. It started with phone calls and text messages and emails saying we have to do |
| 2:30.5 | something. We have to do something now. We had to find the quickest way to protect these rights |
... |
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