MAGA Senate candidate Kari Lake once called an archaic Arizona law that bans abortion in the state a “great” law that she would be “incredibly thrilled” to have it go into effect.
Well on Tuesday it did, and Lake is now attempting to reverse course as Republicans continue to face electoral backlash in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s demise.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court revived an 1864, Civil War-era law, that placed a near-total ban on abortion. The only exceptions to the law are narrowly defined allowances to protect the life of a pregnant person and the legislation carries a penalty of up to five years in prison for abortion providers.
In the aftermath of the ruling, Lake, who lost her bid for Arizona’s governorship in 2022, issued a statement responding to the decision. “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 wrote that she agreed with former President Donald Trump’s statements earlier this week that abortion should “be determined by each individual state and her people.”
Lake’s critics, including her Democratic opponent Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) were quick to point out that she had once lauded the law that is now going into effect.
“I’m incredibly thrilled that we’re going to have a great law that is already in the books,” Lake said in June of 2022. “It will prohibit abortion in Arizona, and I think we’re going to be paving the way and setting course for other states to follow.”
During the 2022 Arizona Republican gubernatorial primary debate, Lake stated that her “personal belief is that all life matters. All life counts, and all life is precious, and I don’t believe in abortion,” adding that she felt the 1864 law “is going to take and is going to go into effect. That’s what I believe will happen.”
In the aftermath of Roe, Republicans have been summarily defeated everywhere that pro-choice ballot initiatives have been placed in voters hands, and the issue promises to be a defining factor in November’s elections. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Trump floated a pivot towards running as an abortion “moderate” over fears that the party was getting “killed” on the issue. As one source told Rolling Stone on Monday, Trump has been advised by some Fox News personalities that running on a platform with a federal abortion ban would be a gift for Democrats, advice that likely contributed to his efforts to reign in his stance on reproductive rights earlier this week.
Despite repeatedly floating a national ban, Trump said in a video released Monday that his “view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.”
In the video, the former president could not resist bragging that he was responsible for the end of Roe, and the statement did little to assuage concerns that Trump would target reproductive rights should he retake the White House in November.
Just like the former president she idolizes, Lake is learning just how hard it is to outrun her record on reproductive rights.
