The Abortion Access Amendment Is Getting Most Of Its Funding From Outside Arizona
It’s bad enough that the abortion lobby is fully committed to its disturbing agenda to enshrine abortion up until birth in the Arizona Constitution. But now, it appears, that the overwhelming majority of the funding to get this measure on our ballot in November isn’t even coming from within our state.
I recently examined the campaign finance reports for both Q3 and Q4 of 2023 for Arizona for Abortion Access (the group driving the campaign for this constitutional amendment) and noticed a concerning trend. Most of the dollars being raised to support this campaign are coming from groups outside Arizona.
In Q3 (July 1 – September 30), the campaign’s funding landscape revealed that individual Arizonans contributed just $12,202 while corporations and LLCs based in Arizona contributed just over $87,000. That’s a total of just over $99,000 coming from inside our state for this ballot measure. So, how much funding came from outside Arizona? More than $2.3 million! If you do the math, that means a mere 4% of the total financial backing for the Arizona Abortion Access Amendment is coming from within our state while 96% of the funding has been injected from the outside. In a campaign that should be driven by local voices, this difference is not only staggering, it’s alarming.
Adding to this disconcerting narrative, the Q4 (October 1 – December 31) data continues this disheartening trend. Despite an increase in contributions from Arizona individuals and corporations—totaling $1,133,282 and constituting 33% of total contributions—the specter of external interference looms ominously. Contributions from outside Arizona commanded a 67% share during Q4 for a total of $2,244,207. Additionally, the number of out-of-state individual contributions, 186, surpassed the count of individual contributions from Arizona, 112.
Compounding these concerns is the revelation that the largest business contribution from both quarters comes from an organization named The Fairness Project, a Washington, D.C.-based entity. Ironically, The Fairness Project champions direct democracy for ballot measures, emphasizing collective decision-making by the public. And yet, the group paradoxically channels significant funding from outside Arizona to influence the state’s constitutional trajectory. In the November 2023 election in Ohio, where voters were deciding on enshrining abortion as a fundamental right in the state, the Fairness Project contributed a staggering $2.2 million to the Ohio United for Reproductive Rights Campaign.
Overall, the Ohio United for Reproductive Rights Campaign garnered a substantial $23,820,999 in out-of-state funding—83% of their total funding. Unfortunately, this substantial financial support played a pivotal role in the passage of the initiative, leading to the tragic amendment of abortion as a fundamental right in Ohio. This alarming pattern of out-of-state funding continues in Arizona, where the Fairness Project has contributed $3,124,502 to the Arizona Abortion Access Campaign, constituting 54% of the total income in both Q3 and Q4.
Arizonans stand at a pivotal juncture, facing not only the potential erosion of our constitutional values but also the disturbing reality that external forces are actively shaping our state’s destiny. Even worse, at the core of this issue is the shocking possibility of embedding in our state’s constitution the unconstrained authority to terminate pregnancies right up until the moment of birth—an appalling decision of profound consequence.
Now, the people of Arizona must decide. Will you allow external forces to determine the course of our constitutional future and allow abortion up to birth? Or will you decline to sign this amendment and stand for life?
*****
This article was published at AZ Free News and is reproduced with permission.
