Repealing the 1864 near-total abortion ban that Arizona’s state supreme court recently ruled was enforceable would have little effect because “the damage is done”, the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego said on Sunday.
“Any initiative they pass right now wouldn’t even take effect for quite a while,” the US House member and Senate hopeful told NBC News on Sunday, referring to the 90-day delay such a maneuver would undergo before taking effect. He also said a repeal would be vulnerable to being neutralized by future iterations of the state legislature, remarking: “It could just get overturned later by another state house or state senate.”
Gallego instead maintained that codifying abortion rights in Arizona’s constitution through a public referendum was the best countermeasure available for the state supreme court decision clearing the way for authorities to enforce a ban with exceptions for medical emergencies – but not for rape or incest.
“The only protection we really, really have is to codify this and put this on the ballot and enshrine” the abortion rights once granted federally by the US supreme court’s landmark Roe v Wade decision in 1973, Gallego added. “Protect abortion rights.”
His comments came five days after the rightwing court’s ruling allowing enforcement of a ban that pre-dates Arizona’s statehood by nearly five decades.
The law has not immediately taken effect but is bound to supersede a separate 15-week abortion ban that the state passed separately.
An Arizona state lawmaker quickly moved to repeal the 1864 ban but has so far been blocked from advancing his proposal by fellow Republicans.
The ruling in question was made possible thanks to the removal of abortion rights at the federal level in 2022 by a US supreme court counting on three conservative justices appointed during Donald Trump’s presidency.
The elimination of federal abortion rights have driven Democratic victories in elections ever since. And confronted with the reality that most in the US support at least some level of abortion access, Republicans who cheered the reversal of Roe v Wade scrambled to distance themselves from the Arizona supreme court’s 9 April ruling.
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That includes Kari Lake, the Republican who in the fall plans to run for the Arizona US Senate seat held at the moment by the independent Kyrsten Sinema.
“This total ban on abortion the Arizona supreme court just ruled on is out of line with where the people of this state are,” Lake – who is endorsed by Trump – said in a video on Thursday. “This is such a personal and private issue.”
Lake had previously expressed her approval of Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban after the US supreme court eliminated Roe v Wade – and before she lost the state’s 2022 gubernatorial election to her Democratic rival, Katie Hobbs.
And Gallego has seized on that change of position, telling MSNBC recently: “Arizonans aren’t dumb. They know that Kari Lake is lying and is willing to say anything she can to win and to hold power, and they will not trust her with this.”
Gallego’s campaign has helped a coalition of reproductive rights groups collect signatures aiming to put a referendum on Arizona’s ballot for the November elections proposing to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.
The proposed constitutional amendment would establish a fundamental right to abortions up to about the 24th week of pregnancy, with exceptions to protect lives and physical or mental health of pregnant people.
Ballot initiative campaign organizers say they have about 120,000 more signatures than needed to get the issue before voters in November. But that cushion is necessary because those opposed to the campaign have the right to scrutinize and challenge the validity of those signatures.
An Iraq war veteran who served with the US marines, Gallego’s first term in the House began in 2015 and he has been representing his current district since early 2023.
Both he and Lake are heavily favored to advance out of their respective parties’ Senate primaries in July to run in November for a seat being left vacant by Sinema, who chose to not seek re-election.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
