Ward, McSally spell out their views about abortion
If Republican Senate hopeful Kelli Ward has made anything clear in her campaign, it is that some issues are clear cut.
Border security? Build the wall, she says.
The Affordable Care Act? Repeal it. Abortion rights? It’s not so easy. During an editorial board meeting at
The Arizona Republic on Monday, Ward and her GOP rival Martha McSally laid out their views on abortion rights and how that would factor into their views of judicial nominations.
It was at least one issue where Ward, a physician and former state senator, sketched out a more nuanced view of the issue than McSally, the congresswoman who has often added a measure of pragmatism to her conservative preferences.
The issue has renewed importance as the Senate weighs U.S. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court for a vacancy that could cement a conservative majority at the high court for years. Many Democrats have said he could deliver a decisive vote to overturn the 1973 ruling that effectively permitted abortion.
“I of course don’t think Roe v. Wade is a good law. However, I think it’s pretty clear that Judge Kavanaugh has already been on record that he sees it as established law,” Ward said.
“If (Roe was overturned), which I think is a very, very, very long shot, then the abortion issue would return to where I think it belongs, in the states, so that every state could determine what they were going to do on the life issue,” she continued. “For me, I think we should take an approach where we’re being more incremental.
“I would like to see us start at a 24week ban on abortion because, as a physician, I know that after that point in time there is no medical reason, even for the health of the mother to abort that child.”
By contrast, McSally was blunt. “Look, I’m pro-life,” she said. “I have a strong pro-life record since I’ve been in Congress and I’ll continue to have a strong pro-life record when I’m in the Senate.”
McSally then praised Kavanaugh and wanted Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic front-runner in the Senate race, pressed for her view of his nomination.
Planned Parenthood, which provides health care services to women, including abortions, gives McSally a 12 percent score for supporting women’s health care and rights. Sinema has a 100 percent score with the group, whose affiliated political arm has endorsed her.
On Monday, McSally didn’t mention the abortion exceptions she identified this year to the conservative Center for Arizona Policy. Her position there matches what she said, for example, in 2013.
“There’s been a number of distortions by my opponents in the last campaign on this, and so I am pro-life with three exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother,” McSally said in an interview with radio host John C. Scott.
She said then that she considered abortion primarily a state issue, but said Congress should not give federal funding to Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide abortions. McSally didn’t respond to a question The Republic asked congressional candidates in 2014 about their stances on a bill endorsed by House Republicans that would ban abortions after 20 weeks. She voted for former Arizona Rep. Trent Franks’ bills to do that in 2015 and 2017.
Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio declined an invitation to attend the board meeting, but Chad Willems, his campaign manager, discussed the issue.
Arpaio “is certainly pro-life. He does believe in the traditional exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother,” Willems said.