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On Tuesday, Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a 160 year old
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abortion ban is enforceable.
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So they basically made this law 100 and 60 years ago and
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it was brought back.
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That is insane. 100 and 60 years ago,
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they literally jumped in the time machine was like,
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let's bring this law back.
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Yeah, and that would actually make it the 17th state to
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ban all or most abortions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus
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Yeah, man, we just keep going backwards.
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The state's court ruling will be on hold for 14 days and
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reviewed by lower courts.
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Organizers are trying to get abortion rights on the November ballot.
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So Arizona voters may be able to decide on the issue here
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to explain the abortion ban ruling.
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Is Arizona Representative Alma Hernandez.
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Hello, Alma. Welcome.
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Hi, great to be with you today.
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Thank you so much for joining us.
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Alma. Can you explain Arizona's abortion ban ruling?
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Does this mean women in the state don't have access to abortions
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anymore? What we're dealing with is a law that was passed
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in the 19th century since before Arizona even became a state.
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It was actually passed in the 18 hundreds.
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This is a law that was put into place before Arizona became
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a state and before women even had any rights.
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So the fact that the ruling was,
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you know, it was a difficult thing to see yesterday,
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but the ruling was just very disappointing.
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We already had, the state of Arizona was already one of
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the most restrictive states when it comes to ban on abortions.
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We had a 15 week ban on abortions with some exceptions.
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just as of yesterday and then the ruling came out that
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said that we were no longer going to allow that to be
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We would now be going back to the law that they passed
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So now what this means is that there are no exceptions for
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abortions, whether there's been rape or incest.
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The only exception is if it's to save the one the
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mother's life, which I believe is extremely,
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it, it's extremely disappointing.
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But that just means that right now everyone is in limbo,
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right? Because this ruling was just made yesterday,
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which also includes a mandatory prison sentence from 2 to 5 years
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for medical professionals. That's doctors,
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nurses, providers who are providing this very critical care because
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abortion is health care and they are now facing potential legal challenges
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and up to jail or prison just for doing what is their
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job what they should be able to do.
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Will the people of Arizona be able to vote on the abortion
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ban on the November ballot?
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Is that a possibility?
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Yes. So, one of the things that we are doing
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right now is we're still collecting signatures to help get this ballot
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measure that we've been working on.
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Actually, not, not just because of yesterday,
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but for, for months now,
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it's been an effort to be able to get a ballot referendum
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would enshrine it in our state constitution.
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The ability for us to be able to make those decisions as
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our families and our medical providers and not allow state government or
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laws to dictate whether or not a woman can have an abortion
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So there is a ballot measure right now that we're trying
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it will get on the ballot.
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let's just start there.
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It will be on the ballot for November and I hope that
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individuals know that they can vote for this.
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It would be a constitutional amendment which means that regardless of what
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the Arizona Supreme Court just said or ruled on that would supersede
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that. So we are hoping we can get the support from
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the Latino voters here in Arizona.
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I think there's a huge misconception that all Latinos are,
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you know, pro life or anti Aora.
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But I think one of the important things to note here is
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yes, this ruling happened and it's terrible.
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But elections have consequences.
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And the only reason we are in this situation right now is
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because we have conservative Republicans who care more about telling us what
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we can and can't do with our bodies than actually trying to
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make a difference to improve Arizona.
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Some Arizona Republicans are distancing themselves from the ruling.
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What are your thoughts on this?
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I believe it's actually complete nonsense and BS and people are not
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stupid. These are the same individuals who have continuously voted to
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restrict access to abortion,
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to reproductive health, to,
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to make it more difficult for individuals to access things like contraceptives
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These are the same individuals who are OK,
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incarcerating medical professionals who give this care to women.
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So I call BS on all of these individuals who are now
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trying to take the narrative in the press and say,
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well, we don't necessarily agree with what the,
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the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled on.
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Let's try to come up with a modern fix.
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There is no modern fix.
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We should not in 2024 be legislating women's decisions.
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So I, I call BS on every single Republican who's now
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out there trying to claim that they don't support this.
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When every single one of them put us in this situation,
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they are the ones who have voted for this.
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They are the ones who stacked the court.
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They are the ones who allowed these things to pass and now
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they want to backpedal and say actually it's it's actually not,
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not what we fully support.
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So, no, I call BS on every single one of
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them. I just feel like we're just like going backwards.
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you know, in November,
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hopefully people vote and make their voices heard and you know
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there's better outcomes and we're ta and hopefully we can speak
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to you on better terms at that point.
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we wanted to ask where can people find you?
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Yeah, so I'm on social media.
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Of course, on both Twitter and Instagram,
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I am available. If anyone wants to get involved.
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If they're in Arizona,
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please reach out to me.
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There are so many changes that we can make starting from the
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ball, the top of the ballot all the way to the
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bottom. We need people to get involved and wake up because
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we can, can continue to go down this path so they
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can find me on Twitter at Alma for Arizona and on Instagram
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rep a Hernandez and I am happy to talk to anyone and
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get them involved, but this is going to take a lot
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of effort and, and really advocacy for our community.
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It's gonna take a village but we're united.
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Alma. We really appreciate you breaking down what's happening.
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Yes. Thank you for joining us.
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Of course. Thank you for covering this.
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Take care. Thank you.
Series