As a national politics reporter, I have long watched activists lobby Republicans to ban abortion and lawmakers—eager to earn support at the ballot box—repeatedly affirm the GOP’s unflinching solidarity with the pro-life movement.
So when the US Supreme Court in 2022 finally overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark case guaranteeing access to the medical procedure, I suspected the fallout would be incredibly messy—not just for women navigating the patchwork of laws restricting abortion access around the country but also for Republicans forced to grapple with wide-ranging viewpoints within their party on how, or if, the medical procedure should be regulated.
That dysfunction is readily on display right now in Arizona, where this week Democratic governor Katie Hobbs signed legislation sent to her by the Republican-controlled legislature that would repeal a Civil War–era abortion ban. Just weeks after the state Supreme Court revived the 1864 law, Democrats and a handful of Republicans backed a bill that would repeal the ban, which makes no exception for incest or rape and suggested doctors could be imprisoned for performing the procedure unless they are trying to save the life of the mother. (This law, by the way, was in place nearly five decades before Arizona became a state, in part thanks to a male lawmaker with a penchant for marrying girls.)
The conundrum in Arizona quickly earned national attention as Democrats seized on the court ruling, highlighting that Republicans were giddy to defend the near-total abortion ban and warning that more efforts to restrict women’s reproductive health care would persist unless the GOP loses in Washington and down the ballot in November. This reality, coupled with different opinions among liberals and conservatives about abortion more generally, underscores the landscape Republicans are trying to navigate in 2024.
“Republicans in Arizona and across the country are in a really difficult position right now because they know from polling that the majority of their constituents do not support an abortion ban,” Samara Klar, a political scientist at the University of Arizona School of Government and Public Policy, tells Vogue. If Republicans hope to expand their power in Washington and state legislatures like Arizona’s, they obviously need that support. But the GOP doesn’t have a silver bullet to address the abortion issue, which has quickly emerged as a central one for voters on both sides of the debate. Nearly 80% of Arizonians polled describe abortion as a somewhat or very important issue, according to a March survey from Klar and YouGov.
“Republicans can legislate a new policy to replace the ban, but that would require actually outlining what their policy is,” Klar says. “That’s a really tricky position because abortion is a very nuanced issue. And just because their constituents oppose a ban does not mean they believe that abortion should be legal at any time during pregnancy.” (Nationwide, 55% of voters polled say abortion should be allowed until a certain time in most circumstances, according to a February YouGov survey. Thirty-one percent of voters polled said there should be some restrictions on abortion access before 16 weeks, and just 14% say restrictions should come after 16 weeks.)
The competing opinions among key voters have forced some Republicans to rethink their messaging on the issue and, in some cases, be among the loudest pro-choice voices in the room—if just for a moment. Arizona GOP state representative Matt Gress, for example, helped spearhead efforts in the lower chamber last month to repeal the ban, calling it “unworkable and out of line with the values of Arizonans.” Though his efforts resulted in his removal from a key committee, Gress, who backs a 15-week ban, earned national recognition for reaching across the aisle.
The vote might enable Gress to remain competitive in his Phoenix-area district for the November election, though he risks alienating ardent pro-life voters, says Marcus Dell’Artino, an Arizona GOP strategist.
And Gress is not the only self-described pro-life Republican changing his tune. Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, who once said that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who access abortion, has shied away from embracing a federal abortion ban, punting the issue to the states and indicating that, if elected, he would not block local prosecutors from regulating abortion. Arizona GOP senate candidate Kari Lake has also repeatedly shifted her stance in recent weeks. Lake once called the procedure an “ultimate sin” but recently described the ban as out of touch. (She also complained when the state’s Democratic attorney general vowed not to enforce the ban.)
While Republicans struggle to get on the same page, one thing is clear: Abortion is not an issue candidates in competitive races are eager to address this election cycle.
In Arizona, absent the 1864 ban, a 15-week ban is in place—though pro-choice advocates are moving to propose a ballot measure that would ensure abortion access up to about 24 weeks, making exceptions to save the life or protect the health of the mother.
But even though Republicans like Gress sided with the pro-choice bloc in the vote this spring, Democrats will not show them any mercy in the long run, says Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America. Hawkins, who backs a federal abortion ban, believes it’s a fool’s errand for Republicans to go after pro-choice voters.
“We are not living in a world where we can find a lot of agreement across the aisle,” she says. “In this political climate, voters want to know that you’re with them and that you’re not going to betray them.” Democrats are not going to suddenly go easy on Republicans in campaign ads, for example, just because of one pro-choice vote, she adds. “Democrats hold their ground. They are ideologues when it comes to the issue of abortion. Anyone who thinks there’s common ground on that is at a happy-hour party in Washington, DC, flirting with the 20-year-old interns.”
In the midst of all this squabbling, pregnant women are going to bear the brunt of the uncertainty, argues Caitlin Millat, a law professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University in Phoenix. Likely until November, “we will have months of confusion,” Millat, who is herself pregnant, says—and because of it, medical providers will “err on the side of caution and not provide services” to minimize the chances for legal liability.
Abortion advocates hope that voters will be able to determine which lawmakers are backing pro-choice measures out of true solidarity and which are doing it out of political necessity.
“The politically beneficial thing for [these Republicans] is to simply say that they got rid of the 1864 total ban,” says Dawn Penich, a spokeswoman for Arizona for Abortion Access. Republicans cannot go further than backing a 15-week ban without the threat of dividing their base. Penich adds: “We hope that [voters] are also connecting the dots about who truly supports this when they do get to vote on it.”