US President Biden’s election campaign banks on abortion question in Arizona

When two volunteers from the Biden-Harris presidential campaign knocked on Davine Cortez's door in Arizona, the businesswoman -- who is not usually interested in politics -- was hesitant to talk to them.

But when she realized they were collecting signatures to protect the right to abortion in the southwestern US state, Cortez opened the front door wide.

"I'll sign, of course!" she said.

The 50-year-old from Phoenix even grabbed a handful of pens to give to the volunteers: "Take these, take these, so that more people can sign," she said.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated an 1864 law that almost completely restricts access to abortion in the swing state — which was fiercely contested in 2016 and 2020 — with no exceptions for rape or incest.

That decision has pulled the issue to the forefront of the 2024 presidential campaign once again, as Democratic President Joe Biden positions himself as an unwavering defender of reproductive rights after the US Supreme Court -- many members of which were appointed by his Republican opponent Donald Trump -- overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.

"Women need to have abortions (due to) different situations," Cortez told AFP.

"To take away those rights is taking away a human right," she added.

"Nobody should ever tell us what to do with our bodies. That includes abortion, vaccines -- anything," she said, signing the campaign petition.

'Back to the 1800s'

Arizona is just the latest of about 20 US states that have banned or severely restricted abortion since the 2022 court decision revoked the national right to the procedure.

As Arizona's ruling faces legal challenges, the ultimate outcome remains unclear -- but Vice President Kamala Harris still seized on the issue during a recent campaign trip to the state.

Trump "he basically wants to take America back to the 1800s," Harris said in reference to the reinstatement of the 160-year-old law.

"Here's what a second Trump term looks like: More bans, more suffering and less freedom," she added.

Democrats are mobilizing on the ground, especially motivated by the fact that Biden beat Trump in Arizona by only a little more than 10,000 votes in 2020.

The petition, originally launched by a non-partisan coalition, aims to enshrine the right to an abortion in the Arizona state constitution via referendum, which would take place on November 5 -- the same day as the presidential election.

Organizers say they have already gathered more than half a million signatures.

"What I hope happens is more people register to vote," the state's Democratic Senator Mark Kelly told AFP on the sidelines of a meeting with activists working on the petition in Phoenix.

"Who's in the White House, who controls Congress, really, really matters to people's lives," he said.

'Going back in history'

Going up against anti-abortion Republicans, the campaign's focus on reproductive rights "is going to sway a lot of Arizonans to vote Democrat," volunteer Liz Grumbach told AFP.

"I think that there is a long, long history of abortion rights in Arizona," the 37-year-old said.

"It feels like we are going back in history a little bit," Grumbach said, lamenting that "I have, I think, been concerned about abortion my entire life as a woman."

Still, campaigners are "confident."

"We've seen repeatedly that when abortion is on the ballot, it wins," Chris Love, senior advisor to Arizona for Abortion Access, said.

Aware that abortion rights are hugely popular, Trump, who has pointed to his nomination of three conservative Supreme Court justices as a major accomplishment of his presidency, has been treading lightly on the subject lately, and seemed to rule out the possibility of a national ban were he reelected.

But the state's most conservative Republicans are not giving up on the issue, and party officials who tried to distance themselves from the ruling faced backlash on social media.

But such "ridiculous" restrictions "just (don't) make sense to me," petition signer Lucy Meyer told AFP.

"We're not in the 1800s anymore," the 54-year-old banker said.

Agence France-Presse