“This is what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering and less freedom,” said US Vice President Kamala Harris. “Like he did in Arizona, he wants to take America back to the 1800s.”
Abortion, a major issue in the presidential campaign
A few months before the November presidential election, abortion is emerging as a major issue in the campaign in the United States and particularly in this key southwestern state, where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump with only 10,000 votes. advance in 2020. Because the Supreme Court of Arizona on Tuesday judged applicable a law of 1864, which prohibits abortion from conception, except in the case where the mother is in mortal danger.
Rape or incest are not considered valid exceptions
Rape and incest are not considered valid exceptions. This text dating back to the Civil War, a time when women did not have the right to vote, is controversial and embarrassing even in Republican ranks. Its real application remains very uncertain, in particular because the attorney general of Arizona has sworn not to prosecute any doctor or woman involved in an abortion.
But the threat of a major tightening exists. Ms. Harris portrayed the decision as “one of the greatest aftershocks” of the earthquake of 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down constitutional protection of the right to abortion.
This reversal, decided by conservative judges, some appointed by Donald Trump, was “only the first act of a broader strategy aimed at suppressing the rights and freedoms of women (…), state by state”, a denounced the Democratic vice-president. “Donald Trump is the architect of this health care crisis,” she continued. “And it’s not a fact he hides. In fact, he brags about it.”
Arizona, a key state
Arizona is one of a handful of key states that will decide the presidential election. The Democrats are making abortion a strong argument in favor of the re-election of Joe Biden, so far left behind by Donald Trump in the polls. A vast advertising campaign worth at least one million dollars must target this southwestern state to present the Democratic president as an ardent defender of abortion.
Over the past two years, around twenty American states have banned or severely restricted access to abortion. But this ideological victory turned into an electoral burden for the Republicans. Polls show that the majority of Americans support abortion, which weakens the conservative party at the polls. Even voters in Kansas, a state anchored to the right, recently supported the right to abortion in a referendum.
Trump is now showing restraint
Aware of the political risk, Donald Trump is now exercising restraint, recalling that each state is free to legislate on the subject. “The Arizona Supreme Court went too far in its decision on abortion,” he repeated Friday on his Truth Social network. The Arizona Parliament, dominated by Republicans, must “act as quickly as possible” to adopt a new law, he said. “We should ideally have the three exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. This is important!”
In his post, he portrayed Democrats as “extremists,” repeating a lie that the American left supports “the execution of babies, in some cases after birth.” In Tucson, Ms. Harris referred him to his de facto alliance with evangelical voters, supporters of a total ban on abortion, and to the vagueness he has long maintained on the issue. “Donald Trump’s friends in the US Congress are trying to pass a national ban,” she recalled. “And now Trump wants us to believe he won’t sign a national ban? Enough of this manipulation!”