Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, the front-runner in the 2022 GOP Senate primary, tells National Review in a written statement that Democratic Arizona senator Mark Kelly’s comments on parental-consent abortion laws are “despicable”:
Once again Mark Kelly shows just how out of touch he is with Arizonans. It’s despicable that he won’t even give Arizonans a defense of his record.
The radical Left, of which Mark Kelly is a devoted member, has been pushing its agenda to take American parents out of the picture. Mark Kelly and the radical Left don’t want parents to be involved in their children’s education, school curriculum, and now risky and weighty procedures to end a human life.
Every life is sacred, and each is worth being protected by our laws. When a girl is considering an abortion, we can all agree that removing parents and families from the picture is a terrible idea.
As National Review reported Thursday morning, Senator Kelly said he didn’t know if a bill he recently voted for would invalidate Arizona’s parental-consent abortion law, but Kelly did express general opposition to such laws:
Parental rights have become a major flashpoint in American politics. Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s statement that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” cost him dearly in last year’s Virginia gubernatorial race. But Senate Democrats don’t seem to have learned much of a lesson from McAuliffe’s mistake: They recently voted — almost unanimously — in favor a bill that would strike down laws requiring parental consent or parental notification before a minor has an abortion. And that vote could haunt Democratic candidates in November.
Take, for example, the case of Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly, who is up for re-election this year in what will likely be one of the most competitive races in the country. When I recently asked Kelly if the bill he voted for, the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), would invalidate Arizona’s parental-consent law, the Arizona senator told me he didn’t know. “I think that’s something that you could, you know, reach out to the Congressional Research [Service] folks and figure out,” Kelly said. He did, however, express general opposition to parental-consent laws, saying he would not be the “arbiter of an age” at which a minor could choose to have an abortion without her parents’ involvement.
The office of GOP senator Steve Daines, the chairman of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, tells National Review that it confirmed with the Congressional Research Service that Arizona’s parental-consent law would likely be struck down under the WHPA. . . .
“As a parent myself, somebody who has raised two daughters who are now in their mid 20s, I take this very seriously. But ultimately I feel that young women at a certain age should have the rights to make these kind of decisions with their doctor,” Kelly told National Review in the Capitol. But at what age should a minor be able to make that decision without parental consent? “I’m not going to be the arbiter of an age and a timeline and red line,” Kelly said. “You know, people ask, ‘Is there a red line here?’ No. But, I think it’s important for women to be able to make these decisions on their own, and not a bunch of folks in Washington making them for them.”