The politics on abortion have shifted, and after getting exactly what they wanted two years ago when Roe v. Wade was overturned, Republicans are still on defense and struggling to find a winning message.
One day after former President Donald Trump tried to dodge the issue and neutralize Democratic attacks by saying abortion will be decided by states, the resurrection of an 1864 law that will ban almost all abortions showed the position can boomerang politically on Republicans.
“I don’t think there’s a single Republican candidate in Arizona that was prepared for the fallout of this particular decision,” said Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant who previously served in Arizona’s state Senate.
Trump is trying to thread the needle on abortion by insisting states will make their own decisions. But on Wednesday he said Arizona’s ruling went too far and would “definitely” change.
“Yeah, they did,” Trump said when asked if Arizona went too far. “And that will be straightened out. And as you know, it’s all about states’ rights. That will be straightened out. And I’m sure that the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason, and that will be taken care of, I think, very quickly.”
The Civil War-era law makes abortion a felony punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs or helps a woman obtain one. It includes an extremely narrow exception for “when it is necessary” to save a pregnant person’s life.
President Biden and Democrats are trying to seize what they see as a major political advantage.
At a press conference with the Japanese prime minister Wednesday, Biden was asked what he would say to the people of Arizona in the aftermath of the ruling.
“Elect me. I’m in the 20th century — 21st century. Not back then,” the president said. “They weren’t even a state.”
Biden and his campaign have made abortion access a central pillar of his reelection effort, warning that Trump and Republican leaders pose a grave threat to reproductive health care after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
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