Donald Trump says Arizona's abortion ban goes 'too far'
Arizona's new abortion law has fired up significant opposition, ITV News Correspondent Dan Rivers reports
Donald Trump said Arizona's new abortion ban goes "too far" after the state's Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision in allowing the enforcement of a long-dormant law that bans nearly all abortions.
After a reporter asked the former US president on Wednesday if Arizona went "too far" Mr Trump responded with: "Yeah they did and it'll be straightened out and as you know, it’s all about states’ rights.”
The comments echo those made by current president and Mr Trump's presidential rival, Joe Biden.
The comments come days after Mr Trump said each state should decide its own rules on abortion in a video released on Monday. For months there had been mixed messages and speculation over his stance on the topic.
In the video, Mr Trump again took credit for the US Supreme Court's decision to end Roe v Wade in June 2022, saying that he was “proudly the person responsible for the ending” of the constitutional right to an abortion and he thanked the conservative justices who overturned it by name.
While he again articulated his support for three exceptions — in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk — he went on to describe the current legal landscape, in which different states have different restrictions.
The ruling in Arizona drastically changes the legal landscape within the state around terminating pregnancies.
The law, which predates Arizona’s existence as a state, provides no exceptions for rape or incest and allows abortions only if the mother's life is "in jeopardy".
President Joe Biden has described the new abortion ban in Arizona as "dangerous" and "cruel".
Mr Biden said on Tuesday that the law "fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest", and described the Republican officials who enacted the legislation as being "committed to ripping away women’s freedom".
"Vice President Harris and I stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose. We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on Congress to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade for women in every state," he said.
The comments from both Mr Biden and Mr Trump come as both battle to win over American citizens in the run-up to the US presidential election in November.
“My 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," Mr Trump said in the video, which was released on his media platform Truth Social.
He did not specify any timings in terms of when abortion should be allowed, and declined to endorse a national cutoff.
Democrats immediately denounced the ruling in Arizona, blaming Mr Trump for the loss of abortion access after the US Supreme Court ended the national right to abortion.
Arizona’s highest court suggested doctors can be prosecuted under the 1864 law, though the opinion written by the court’s majority didn’t explicitly say that.
The law orders prosecution for anybody "who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument... with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life.”
How did Arizona reach this point?
The decision on Tuesday threw out an earlier lower-court decision that concluded doctors couldn’t be charged for performing abortions in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The law was enacted decades before Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912.
A court in Tucson had blocked its enforcement shortly after the US Supreme Court issued its 1973 Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing the constitutional right to an abortion.
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Roe v Wade was then overturned in June 2022, ending the protections for abortion that had been in place for nearly 50 years.
After the ruling then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, successfully requested that a state judge lift an injunction that blocked enforcement of the 1864 ban.
The state Court of Appeals suspended the law as Brnovich’s Democratic successor, Attorney General Kris Mayes, urged the state’s high court to uphold the appellate court's decision.
What happens next?
Under a near-total ban, the number of abortions in Arizona is expected to drop drastically from about 1,100 every month, as estimated by a survey for the Society of Family Planning.
Last year abortion rights advocates began a push to ask Arizona voters to create a constitutional right to abortion. If proponents collect enough signatures, Arizona would become the latest state to put the question of reproductive rights directly before voters.
The proposed constitutional amendment would guarantee abortion rights until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks. It also would allow later abortions to save the mother’s life, or to protect her physical or mental health.
What are other states doing?
Now that each state can make its own rules when it comes to abortion, there is huge variation in what is allowed from state to state.
Ohio enshrined the right to abortion in November in response to the overturning of Roe v Wade, meanwhile a hospital in Alabama paused IVF treatment in February in the wake of a ruling claiming frozen embryos are children.
In addition to Arizona the states that have made abortion illegal since the overturning of Roe v Wade are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia.
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