Why Some Abortion Rights Groups Aren’t Backing Pro-Choice Amendments

Eloisa Lopez is the executive director for Pro-Choice Arizona and the Abortion Fund of Arizona , one of only three funds in the state. She sits on the state’s maternal mortality committee. She escaped an abusive relationship when she was pregnant with her second child and has had four abortions. Lopez knows that abortion access can be a critical lifeline.

That’s why, she says, she can’t support the pro-choice constitutional amendment that will likely be on the Arizona ballot in November.

The ballot measure, created by Arizona for Abortion Access, would establish a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, somewhere between 22 to 24 weeks, in the state constitution. Lopez’s main concern is that enshrining the Roe v. Wade standard in Arizona’s constitution would protect abortion until viability but leave the door open for legislators to restrict care after that point.

“We don’t support a viability standard,” Lopez told HuffPost. Both of Lopez’s organizations were involved in initial committee conversations with Arizona for Abortion Access, but once it became clear that the initiative was supporting a viability standard, not a general fundamental right, Lopez withdrew her support.

“We’re not interested in compromising,” she said. “You’re asking the state to give you permission to a certain degree but then leaving it to the state to criminalize you after that point.”

Not everyone agrees. Dawn Penich, the communications director for Arizona for Abortion Access, argued that the urgency to restore abortion access right now is critical ― even if it’s only until viability. The state currently has a 15-week abortion ban and is staring down a near-total ban since the state Supreme Court ruled this month that an 1864