Arizona state House Speaker Ben Toma (R), a politician who believes abortion is immoral and should be banned, is now facing a reckoning as he tries to navigate the fallout from Arizona’s Supreme Court decision enforcing an 1864 abortion ban.
Since the decision last week, Toma has twice helped block House Democrats’ efforts to repeal the ban on procedural grounds but he is facing pressure from national Republicans, including former President Trump and Kari Lake, who want to see the Civil War-era ban repealed.
This would result in the reinstatement of a 15-week ban passed in 2022.
Toma is running for Congress in a crowded Republican primary and could be punished for his stance by pr0-abortion voters. Last year, Toma defended the 1864 law in an amicus brief to the state Supreme Court.
Reports say the backlash against the territorial ban could upend conservative majorities in the state and hurt Trump’s campaign in the crucial swing state.
Ben Toma on abortion
“Abortion is a very complicated topic. It is ethically and morally complex. I understand that we have deeply held beliefs. And I would ask everyone in this chamber to respect the fact that some of us believe that abortion is the murder of children,” Toma said on the Arizona House floor Wednesday as he voted to block Democrats from bringing the repeal bill to the floor.
Toma maintains there’s no rush to vote on a repeal because no bill can take effect until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns for the year.
Meanwhile, a rising star among the Democrats, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Sunday that state lawmakers will introduce a bill this week to assist women traveling from Arizona seeking abortion care to get assistance. The “emergency legislation” would allow Arizona abortion providers to become quickly approved to work in California, allowing them to continue their work from the neighboring state.
“It sickens you,” Newsom said of the Arizona law in an MSNBC interview with Jen Psaki on Sunday.
“We now have a ban [that] goes back to 1864 in the state of Arizona, and they’re celebrating — 1864. I thought the Republican Party wanted to put a wrecking ball to the 21st century,” he said. “Now they want to recreate the 19th century.”
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