Biden campaign aides and allies quickly connected an Arizona court decision that effectively bans abortion in the state to former President Donald Trump and his support for each state deciding its own abortion laws.
“This is what leaving it to the states looks like,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa on X, previously known as Twitter.
“This is what Donald Trump endorsed yesterday,” Kate Bedingfield, a former top aide on the Biden 2020 campaign and in the Biden White House, posted on X.
“An abortion ban from 1864… that’s what Trump supports,” wrote Kevin Munoz, another Biden campaign aide.
In a 4-2 decision, the Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected arguments that it should uphold the 15-week abortion ban passed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R) in 2022 and enforced after the end of Roe v. Wade.
Instead, the court ruled that the Civil War-era law passed before Arizona was even a state should be enforced. The court ruled to lift the stay on the law, meaning it goes into effect in 14 days.
The law makes abortion a felony punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs or helps a woman obtain one. It includes an extremely narrow exception for “when it is necessary” to save a pregnant person’s life.
The ruling came one day after Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for November’s presidential contest, issued a video statement in which he said states will be allowed to determine abortion law either by legislation or by vote.
“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be,” Trump said. “At the end of the day this is all about the will of the people.”
In the same statement, Trump said he was “proudly” responsible for bringing about the end of Roe v. Wade through the appointment of three conservative justices.
Jim Messina, a former top Obama campaign aide, called the Arizona ruling “the direct, intended consequence of [Trump’s] b.s. ‘leave it to the states’ line that people are letting him get away with. Trump presidency = abortion bans.”
