Republican state senators cross line to repeal abortion laws

The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision last month to bring back a 160-year-old, near-total ban on the procedure inflamed the politics in one of the country’s electoral battlegrounds.

‘Blame Donald Trump’: Kamala Harris speaks in Jacksonville, Florida. Picture: AFP

Two Republicans joined with Democrats in the Arizona Senate to roll back the state’s nearly total ban on abortions, as some in the GOP look to reverse a significant political liability for the party ahead of the November elections.

The move on Wednesday comes a week after the Arizona state house also voted to repeal the ban.

Three Republicans joined with all Democrats in that vote.

“This total abortion ban would have jailed doctors, threatened the lives of women across our state and stripped millions of Arizonans of their bodily autonomy,” said Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs, promising to quickly sign the legislation.

The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision last month to bring back a 160-year-old, near-total ban on the procedure inflamed the politics in one of the country’s electoral battlegrounds. It hasn’t gone into effect yet and the state’s 15-week abortion ban is still the law of the land.

However, because of a quirk in legislative procedure in Arizona, residents are likely to spend much of their summer under the 160-year-old law because bills in the state typically take effect 90 days after the legislative session ends.

The state’s Democrat ­attorney-general has said she was looking at legal options to keep the Civil War-era ban from taking place at all.

Republican senators Shawnna Bolick and TJ Shope crossed party lines to advance the measure. Both are seen as Democrat targets in this year’s election. Ms Bolick is also married to one of the Supreme Court judges who voted to reinstate the ban.

Even though the ban was overturned, Democrats are still expected to campaign heavily on access to the procedure in Arizona and elsewhere across the US, arguing that former president Donald Trump sowed uncertainty by nominating judges to the Supreme Court who repealed the constitutional right to an abortion. Republicans are likely to continue to push to limit access to the procedure.

Arizona voters are expected to consider at least one ballot measure to expand access to the procedure beyond 15 weeks, along with at least a half-dozen other states. One of them is Florida, which put in place a six-week abortion ban on Wednesday, giving Democrats another opportunity to cast Republicans as extreme on abortion.

“Across our nation, we witness a full-on assault, state by state, on reproductive freedom. And understand who’s to blame. Former president Donald Trump did this,” Vice-President Kamala Harris said in Jacksonville, Florida.

Mr Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday, didn’t directly answer whether he would veto a nat­ional abortion ban as president, saying he didn’t think a bill would get to the president’s desk, adding: “It’s about states’ rights.”

Asked whether he was supportive of states punishing women who sought abortions or monitoring pregnancies to try to prevent abortions, he said those decisions should be with the states.

Arizona is seen as one of the most important states ahead of the November election.

The Wall Street Journal