PHOENIX (AP) — An informational pamphlet for Arizona voters, who will decide in the fall whether to guarantee a constitutional right to an abortion, can refer to an embryo or fetus as an “unborn human being,” the state’s highest court ruled Wednesday.
The Arizona Supreme Court justices sided with Republican lawmakers, who drafted the language sent to all voters in the state, over proponents of the ballot measure on abortion rights.
The ruling comes as abortion foes have long worked to give embryos and fetuses the same legal and constitutional protections on par with those of the women carrying them. The issue was highlighted recently when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally protected children, forcing lawmakers to scramble to enact protections for in vitro fertilization.
Democrats have made abortion rights a central message since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and it is a key part of their efforts in this year’s elections. They hope the ballot measure in Arizona, one of a handful of battleground states that will determine which party controls the presidency and the U.S. Senate, will drive sympathetic voters to cast a ballot.
The ruling drew swift criticism from the ballot measure's backers, who argued the phrase “unborn human being” is neither impartial nor objective. They said they were concerned that Arizonans would be subjected to biased and politically charged words.
“We are deeply disappointed in this ruling, but will not be deterred from doing everything in our power to communicate to voters the truth of the Arizona Abortion Access Act and why it’s critical to vote YES to restore and protect access to abortion care this fall,” the group, Arizona for Abortion Access, said in a statement.
The ballot measure would allow abortions until an embryo or fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with exceptions allowing later-term abortions to save the mother’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. It would restrict the state from adopting or enforcing any law that would prohibit access to the procedure.
Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican who co-chairs the legislative council, the panel that drafted the disputed language, said it’s intended to help voters understand the current law.
“The Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling is correct,” Toma said.
Arizona for Abortion Access sued the majority-Republican legislative council for including what the group called politicized language. The Superior Court agreed, finding that the GOP-favored language was “packed with emotion and partisan meaning.” That ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court, whose seven justices were appointed by Republican governors.
The brief ruling, signed by Vice Chief Justice John Lopez, did not explain the justices’ rationale, saying a full opinion would be released later. Justice Clint Bolick, whose wife is a Republican lawmaker on the legislative council, recused himself from the case.
The language describing an embryo or fetus as an “unborn human being” will go in a pamphlet that gives voters information on candidates and ballot measures to help inform their choices. The secretary of state’s office, which determines what gets printed on the ballot itself, said “unborn human being” would not appear there.
The secretary of state’s office said Monday that it had certified 577,971 signatures, far above the number required to put the question before voters.
As anti-abortion groups and Republican allies reel from a string of defeats at the ballot box, many have used an array of strategies to keep abortion rights off the ballot, including through monthslong legal battles over ballot initiative language.
In Missouri, for example, Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey stonewalled the abortion-rights campaign for months before the secretary of state, Republican Jay Ashcroft, tried to describe the proposal to voters as allowing “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth.” A state appeals court last year ruled that Ashcroft’s wording was politically partisan and tossed it out. In Florida, language was at the center of attempts by the state’s Republican attorney general to keep a proposed abortion rights amendment off the ballot. Many of these strategies build off of those seen last year in Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights.
Other tactics to thwart abortion ballot measure efforts have included attempts to remove signatures from petitions, legislative pushes for competing ballot measures that could confuse voters, and attempts to raise the thresholds for ballot initiatives or ban residents from placing abortion initiatives on the statewide ballot altogether.
Associated Press writers Christine Fernando and Kimberlee Kruesi contributed.
FILE - A man enters the Arizona Supreme Court building on April 10, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters gather for a news conference prior to delivering more than 800,000 petition signatures to the state Capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot, July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 15 people overnight, including six children and two women, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday. In northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, residents said families were still trapped in their homes and shelters.
It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 people captive inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
In solidarity with Hamas, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire with Israel almost daily for the past year. Israel escalated its campaign against the group in recent weeks.
Rumors circulated for weeks over head of the expeditionary arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Gen. Esmail Qaani’s status after an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September. But Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, was seen in a black bomber jacket, wiping away tears at an event early Tuesday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The funeral of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general killed alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah drew the largest crowd of top leaders in the paramilitary organization together Tuesday for the first time since Tehran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel.
The Guard’s leadership hasn’t been as visible in the two weeks since Iran’s Oct. 1 attack on Israel. The Guard is the main power behind Iran’s theocracy and oversees its arsenal of ballistic missiles — which would be crucial in any future attack on Israel.
At the funeral in Tehran for Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, the Guard’s chief commander, Gen. Hossein Salami, attended alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and the head of the country’s judiciary. Other Guard generals also attended, including Gen. Esmail Qaani of the Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force, about whom rumors had circulated for days regarding his status after the strike that killed Nasrallah.
At least two prominent Guard generals were not on hand: Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Guard’s aerospace division that oversees its missile program, and Gen. Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guard’s navy, did not attend.
Iran offered no explanation for their absence, though Israel has threatened to carry out a serious retaliatory strike against Iran.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 15 people overnight, including six children and two women, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday.
A strike early Tuesday hit a house in the southern town of Beni Suhaila, killing at least 10 people from one extended family, according to Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis. The dead include three children and one woman, according to hospital records. An Associated Press camera operator at the hospital counted the bodies.
In the nearby town of Fakhari, a strike hit a house early Tuesday, killing five people, including three children and a woman, according to the European Hospital, where the casualties were taken.
The Israeli military rarely comments on individual strikes. It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of sheltering in civilian areas.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — In northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, residents said families were still trapped in their homes and shelters Tuesday.
Adel al-Deqes said his relatives tried to move to another place in Jabaliya in the morning, but the military shelled them.
“We don’t know who died and who is still alive,” he said.
Ahmed Awda, another Jabaliya resident, said they heard “constant bombing and gunfire” overnight and Tuesday morning. He said the military destroyed many buildings in the eastern and northern parts of the camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
“They bombed many buildings; some of them empty buildings,” he said.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The head of the expeditionary arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has appeared in television footage aired Tuesday by Iranian state television.
Rumors circulated for weeks over Gen. Esmail Qaani’s status in the time since an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September. But Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, was seen in a black bomber jacket, wiping away tears at an event early Tuesday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.
While Iranian state television did not acknowledge the rumors, it made a point to film Qaani for over a minute and later share the footage from the airport ceremony online.
Qaani was on hand for the repatriation to Iran of the body of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, 58, who was killed in the airstrike.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Australia’s government has imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on five Iranians contributing to the country’s missile defense program, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Tuesday.
Iran’s launch of at least 180 ballistic missiles against Israel on Oct. 1 was “a dangerous escalation that increased the risk of a wider regional war,” Wong said in a statement.
The fresh sanctions target two directors and a senior official in Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, the director of the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, and the commercial director of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group.
The decision brings to 200 the number of Iran-linked individuals and entities now sanctioned by Australia.
“Australia will continue to hold Iran to account for its reckless and destabilizing actions,” Wong said.
People chant slogans during the funeral ceremony of the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People and officials attend the funeral ceremony of the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, Gen. Esmail Qaani, mourns during the funeral ceremony of the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Mourners carry the coffin of Iranian Revolutionary Guards' deputy commander Brigadier Gen. Abbas Nilforushan who died alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last month during his funeral in Karbala, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Pro-Israel protesters holds Israeli flags as demonstrators protest Israel's war against Hamas outside the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A displaced family fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south, sits next to their tent on Beirut's corniche, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Families fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south, sit in front of the Mohammad al-Amin Mosque in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Mourners carry a picture of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during the funeral procession of their relatives, in Maisara near the northern coastal town of Byblos, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Middle East latest: Israeli strikes on southern Gaza kill at least 15 people overnight
Middle East latest: Israeli strikes on southern Gaza kill at least 15 people overnight
