Biden slams Arizona abortion ban as "extreme and dangerous"
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President Biden speaks during an event in Madison, Wisconsin on April 8. Photo: Daniel Steinle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
President Biden assailed Arizona's near-total abortion ban passed Tuesday by the state Supreme Court and said that it is a result of Republicans "who are committed to ripping away women's freedom."
Why it matters: Biden and Democrats have sought to tie the strict abortion bans nationwide to former President Trump, who has repeatedly taken credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.
- The Arizona ban comes a day after Trump said abortion should be left to the states, giving Democrats a new line of attack to blame the former president for some of the strictest abortion laws in the country.
- "This is what leaving it to the states looks like," Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa wrote on the social media platform X.
Driving the news: Biden said in a statement on Tuesday that "millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest."
- "This cruel ban was first enacted in 1864 — more than 150 years ago, before Arizona was even a state and well before women had secured the right to vote."
Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement: "Arizona just rolled back the clock to a time before women could vote – and, by his own admission, there's one person responsible: Donald Trump."
- Harris is planning to travel to Tucson, Ariz. on Friday "to continue her leadership in the fight for reproductive freedoms," the White House said.
The Biden re-elect campaign also said in a news release on Tuesday that the "new ban could criminalize almost all abortion care in the state, put women's lives at risk, and threaten doctors with prosecution and jail time."
- "And it's all because of Donald Trump," the campaign wrote.
What to watch: The state Supreme Court upheld on Tuesday the 1864 law that bans all abortions except to save a mother's life.
- Advocates are collecting signatures to refer an abortion rights measure to the ballot in November, Axios' Jeremy Duda and Jessica Boehm report.
Go deeper: Arizona Supreme Court ruling effectively bans abortion
