LOS ANGELES – Voters in Arizona will join several other US states in deciding whether to expand abortion access after a new initiative qualified for the November ballot on Monday.

The initiative would allow access to abortions for pregnancies up to 24 weeks after conception, a significant increase from the state’s current 15-week limit.

It would also carve out exceptions to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual,” which critics argue could become a legal loophole to allow abortions after foetal viability.

Democrats are seeking to make abortion rights a major issue in the election, especially in key swing states like Arizona, which president Joe Biden narrowly won by around 10 000 votes in 2020.

The Arizona Secretary of State estimated a record 577 971 valid signatures were submitted to add the initiative to the state’s ballot, far surpassing the required threshold of 383 923 signatures.

“This is actually historic, because the number of valid signatures exceeds the number of turned-in signatures, which is a record for the state of Arizona,” Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state, said as he signed the paperwork to put the initiative on the ballot.

The conservative-dominated US Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to abortions in June 2022, with many Republican-led states quickly moving to restrict or outright ban the procedure.

Earlier this year, the Arizona state supreme court upheld a total abortion ban dating back to 1864, which prohibited abortion at any stage of pregnancy, unless it was necessary to save the mother’s life.

The ruling garnered widespread criticism, and was repealed a month later by the Arizona state legislature, after several Republicans broke with their party, which is in the majority, to join Democrats.

Arizona’s current 15-week ban allows exceptions to save the mother’s life but does not carve out exceptions for pregnancies from rape or incest.

Several other states have abortion access ballot measures in the November election, including Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota, with several others still pending.

In addition to Arizona, 21 other states have set stricter standards for abortion since the fall of Roe v Wade, ranging from full bans to earlier gestational limits. -Nampa/AFP