Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake is actively lobbying state lawmakers to overturn a 160-year-old law she once supported that bans abortion in almost all cases, a source with knowledge of her efforts told CNN.
Lake is pushing for GOP lawmakers in her home state to repeal the law while leaving in place legislation signed in 2022 by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey that would restrict abortion to within the first 15 weeks of a pregnancy. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state must adhere to the Civil War-era law, which bans all abortions “except those necessary to save a woman’s life.”
“Lake has called state legislators and offered her help and support for what they need to overturn the territorial law so it reverts back to the 15-week Ducey law,” the source said.
The move continues a remarkable 180-degree flip by Lake on the state abortion law and illustrates Republican concerns over how the issue is reverberating through a key battleground state.
As a candidate for governor in 2022, Lake called the 1864 law “great” and said she would support the court’s decision on whether to implement it.
“I think we’re going to be setting, paving the way and setting course for other states to follow,” Lake said at the time.
But Lake changed her stance Tuesday following the Arizona Supreme Court ruling and called on the state’s Democratic governor and GOP-controlled Legislature “to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support.”
Her sharp pivot has aligned her with her close ally, former President Donald Trump, who has also undergone an election-year shift on abortion. In a statement Monday, Trump said that the future of abortion access in the United States should be determined by…
Read the full article here
