Pam Rafael pulled up to the Arizona State Capitol on Tuesday afternoon with an ice-cold treat and red-hot anger. She's there to deliver the frozen prickly pear and lime pops she ordered, but she's preoccupied with the Arizona Supreme Court's just-released decision upholding an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions. Ta.
“I'm disgusted,” Rafael, 50, said as he walked to a rally of Democrats protesting the decision. Whether a woman decides to have an abortion is “none of her business,” she added.
The decision, which fundamentally changes abortion care in the crucial battleground state, drew passionate reactions from Arizonans across the political divide, ranging from elation to disgust.
Some conservative voters and the state's most ardent abortion critics hailed it as a victory for women. Many Democrats, moderate independents and some Republicans said the Arizona Supreme Court went too far. But it was far from clear Tuesday whether the decision would tip the balance in November's presidential election.
Critics say the court will reinstate a 160-year-old law that bans all abortions except to save the mother's life, a fast-growing state trying to promote itself as an abortion center. He said that they were imposing 19th century morality on the country. Renewable energy, battery manufacturing, durability to stay alive.
“Leave it to the women,” said Maverick Williams, 25, a retail store manager who was walking his dog in the conservative Anthem neighborhood in Phoenix's north end. “It's her body, so she has to decide.”
Although the court's decision is pending for now, Democrats in Phoenix on Tuesday nominated a Supreme Court justice who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, ending abortion in Arizona and other states.・He wasted no time criticizing former President J. Trump. They predicted a backlash against Republicans in an election year, citing recent ballot measures enacting abortion protections in conservative-leaning states like Kansas and Ohio.
But voters like Williams suggested things might not be that simple in this closely divided desert battleground state. Although he disagreed with the state court's abortion decision, he said he was more concerned about the rising cost of living and that President Biden is too old to serve another term. He said he would vote for Trump.
Arizona has traditionally voted Republican, but the state flipped to President Biden in 2020 by a margin of about 10,000 votes. Two years later, Democrats won the governor's and attorney general's races with campaigns that emphasized support for abortion rights.
Outside a nearby grocery store, Nikki Oakter and her husband, Scott, expressed concerns about both their abortion decision and the Democratic Party. As they filled jugs of water for a soccer game, they said they personally opposed abortion, but could not agree with the 1864 ban because there were no exceptions for rape or incest.
“I'm pretty pro-life, but I think it should be a woman's choice,” said Auchter, 42, an operations manager for a construction company. “It's her body.”
Still, Auchter said abortion is not her top priority this election year. It was “to oust Biden from the presidency.” They said they were more worried about the national debt, rising insurance prices and the record number of asylum seekers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Several Republican politicians rushed to distance themselves from the ruling Tuesday, saying they supported repealing the 1864 law in favor of the existing 15-week abortion ban. But Kathy Herrod, director of the Arizona Policy Action Center and one of Arizona's most prominent anti-abortion activists, praised the ruling, saying it protects “the humanity of the unborn child.” Stated.
“There is a long way to go to establish a culture of living,” she says. “Today was the right legal decision.”
But in interviews conducted across Phoenix on Tuesday, many women said they were appalled.
Crystal Padilla, 30, a hotel cook in Phoenix, said she still can't believe the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections in Roe v. Wade two years ago. She said it was hypocritical for conservative states and judges to impose new restrictions on abortion while not supporting low-income mothers who are struggling to make ends meet.
“Who on the Supreme Court is pushing the baby out?” she asked. “They can’t empathize, yet they try to police others.”
Padilla said she can empathize with this because she herself had an abortion at the age of 19. It was a difficult decision for her, she said, because she couldn't support a baby right after she graduated from high school.
“It still doesn't seem possible,” said Padilla, who plans to vote for Biden. “I worry about the people who are coming of age and have to face this decision and are not given that choice. It's just unconscionable.”
McCall Lemons, 31, a special education teacher at an online charter school, said he was disappointed in Biden and wished he had canceled more student loan debt and focused more on education policy. But she said abortion would still force her to vote for him.