Kari Lake urges AZ governor to end abortion ban she was once 'incredibly thrilled' to support

09 April 2024

Arizona Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, who spent years promoting Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen then lost her 2022 run for governor yet has claimed she is the current “lawful” governor is now calling on the actual governor to come up with a “solution” after the state Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled an 1864 near-total ban on abortion which Lake has called “great” is still legal and enforceable.

“I oppose today’s ruling, and I am calling on Katie Hobbs and the State Legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support,” Lake, who opposes abortion, announced Tuesday.

Just two years ago before losing her race to become Arizona governor, Lake said, “I don’t believe in abortion. I think the older [1864] law is going to take and is going to go into effect that’s what I believe will happen.”

The 1864 law bans nearly all abortion, including in instances of rape and incest, and allows it only to save the life of the mother.

“I believe life begins at conception,” she continued, and when asked about medical abortion, said, “I don’t think abortion pills should be legal.”

That same year she declared, “I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that’s already on the books, so it will prohibit abortion in Arizona.”

The 160-year old law banning abortion was enacted before Arizona became a state. As political scientist David Darmofal noted, “part of Arizona was in the Confederacy just two years before the abortion ban that’s now the law of the state.”

Tuesday afternoon, Lake served up a very different statement, declaring, “it is abundantly clear that the pre-statehood law is out of step with Arizonans.”

“I wholeheartedly agree with President Trump – this is a very personal issue that should be determined by each individual state and her people. I oppose today’s ruling, and I am calling on Katie Hobbs and the State Legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support.”

Lake also said she supports protecting in-vitro fertilization (IVF), which legal experts say is incongruent with those who claim to oppose abortion.

Promising to “fight like hell to protect abortion rights once and for all,” U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, the Democratic Congressman running for the same Senate seat as Lake, blasted Tuesday’s court ruling and his Republican opponent.

“Today’s ruling is devastating for Arizona women and their families. This is not what Arizonans want, and women could die because of it. Yet again, extremist politicians like Kari Lake are forcing themselves into doctors’ offices and ripping away the right for women to make their own healthcare decisions. Lake called this a ‘great law’ – even though it will ban nearly all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest<‘ Gallego said in a statement. “Our fight against extremist bans like the one enacted today has never been more important — which is why I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to protect abortion rights at the federal level. This isn’t about partisanship — it’s about protecting Arizonans’ rights.”

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