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CV NEWS FEED // Critics blasted U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, R-AZ, after she denounced her state’s Supreme Court decision to protect almost all unborn children from abortion.
“I oppose today’s ruling, and I am calling on [Democratic Gov.] Katie Hobbs and the State Legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support,” Lake wrote in a statement released shortly after Tuesday’s ruling.
Author and Blaze Media host Steve Deace remarked that his opinion on Lake had evolved since her time as the Republican nominee in Arizona’s last gubernatorial election two years ago.
“Just extremely disappointed,” he wrote on X in response to Lake’s statement. “Breathtakingly disappointing. Inexcusably disappointing.”
“In 2022, I thought Kari Lake was one of the best candidates I’ve ever seen, and said so,” Deace elaborated. “Now she is almost completely unrecognizable from the candidate she was then, just two years later.”
The Daily Wire investigations editor Brent Scher however, implied that given Lake’s past actions, her recent abortion comments should not be taken as a surprise.
“I love the shock from Republicans that Kari Lake, who knocked on doors to elect Barack Obama, isn’t a conservative diehard,” Scher wrote.
As CatholicVote previously reported:
In January 2017, days before President Donald Trump assumed office, Lake posted a message to social media appearing to advocate protesting Trump’s inauguration. The message seemed to encourage people to donate money to Planned Parenthood and included the hashtag #NotMyPresident to refer to Trump.
Journalist and radio host Elisha Krauss appeared to agree with Scher.
“If you’re disappointed in Kari Lake’s ‘change’ on abortion then you clearly didn’t see her for what she is and always has been,” she wrote on X Wednesday.
Catholic journalist Mary Margaret Olohan highlighted a sentence from Lake’s statement in a post to X (formerly Twitter).
“[W]hat exactly does this mean?” asked Olohan, a senior reporter for The Daily Signal. “Is Kari calling for pro-abortion legislation?”
Despite being a self-professed Catholic, Hobbs is staunchly pro-abortion. Lake calling for Hobbs to take action represents a sharp departure from the contentious history between the two women.
In 2022, Lake lost the hotly-contested governor’s race to Hobbs by a narrow margin of 17,000 votes – 0.67% of the votes cast. Lake was leading Hobbs in the polls prior to Election Day.
Throughout the campaign, Lake slammed Hobbs on the now-governor’s refusal to debate her.
Podcaster Casey Denton pointed out that Lake’s definitive opposition to the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision directly contradicts her earlier assertion that abortion should be a state issue.
“Kari: agrees with Trump that states should decide for themselves,” posted Denton:
*Arizona decides*
Kari: No, not like that
Journalist Michael Quinn Sullivan also commented on Lake backtracking on her previous “states’ rights” position on abortion.
“So… Kari Lake says she wants the states to decide on abortion… yet, Lake says she opposes the ruling that allows the states to decide,” Sullivan wrote.
“The State of Arizona has a policy on abortion (which is to say, prohibiting the murder of babies)… so she wants the AZ legislature and the leftwing governor to create a ‘common sense solution’… which is, apparently, one that allows for the murder of additional babies,” he continued.
Sullivan is the publisher of the Texas Scorecard.
Catholic Arizona resident Peggy McClain seemed to encourage fellow pro-life Arizonans to take action.
“Those who support [Lake] because she said she was prolife in 2022, now that we know she’s not, if you’ve donated to her campaign request your money back,” McClain wrote on X.
“If you don’t need that money please donate it to your local pregnancy center,” she added.
Again from CatholicVote:
Arizona is set to hold its Republican Senate primary election on August 6. Lake’s main competitor in the Republican primary is Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb.
The winner of this contest will face pro-abortion Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-AZ – the presumptive Democratic nominee – in the general election. Incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-AZ, is not seeking re-election.
>> AZ REPUBLICANS BLAST STATE SUPREME COURT FOR UPHOLDING PRO-LIFE LAW <<
