On the local Arizona show “Politics Unplugged,” Democratic politician Katie Hobbs refused to name a single restriction on abortion that she’d support up to birth. Hobbs is the current secretary of state of Arizona and is competing in the Democratic primary to challenge incumbent Republican governor Doug Ducey this fall.
The interviewer asked Hobbs about a recently enacted Arizona law that would prohibit most abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation. “What would your limits be on [abortion]?” he asks. “This [bill] limits nearly all abortions after 15 weeks. Where do you draw the line?”
Hobbs responds, “Well, women deserve access to abortion care. Abortion is health care. I’ve been very clear on my position on that throughout my time in the legislature. So if I’m elected governor, that’s what folks are getting. And I will work with the legislature that’s in place to ensure that women have continued access to reproductive health care.”
The interviewer then pushes Hobbs to say whether she’d support any gestational-age limits on abortion. “But where do you draw the line, though?” he follows up. “I mean, if it’s not 15 weeks, is it 24 weeks? Where do you draw the line where you say, ‘Okay, abortions after this point of time, no, it’s a no go?’”
“Abortion is a personal decision between a woman and her family and her doctor,” Hobbs responded. “And that’s something that needs to be discussed in the medical exam room, not by politicians.”
While there hasn’t been any polling on what Arizonans think of this specific 15-week ban, past polls have found that Arizonans are split nearly evenly on whether abortion should be legal. More recently, a national poll found that a plurality (48 percent) of Americans support bans on abortion after 15 weeks.