Abortion, drugs and immigration at the Arizona border

Back on our first day of briefings, when we spoke with League of Women Voters president Pinny Sheoran, she said that the League’s position is that women have a right to make their own health choices. 

“We have issued statements, we spoke against legislation, the national league has taken a strong stance on this and testified in Congress against any attempts to stop abortion,” she explained. 

Abortion here is not the taboo it is in Malta. You risk losing voters when you’re too extreme on either side of the debate. 

For example: Blake Masters. An Arizona Republican Senate candidate, he backtracked on his harsh rhetoric against abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. 

“I support a ban on very late-term and partial-birth abortion […] And most Americans agree with that,” he says in a video message posted to his Twitter account.

Indeed, he tried arguing that it’s his rival Mark Kelly who has extremist views on abortions. “Mark Kelly votes for the most extreme abortion laws in the world. We’re talking no limits, up until birth. Think about how crazy that is. That’s more extreme than Western Europe,” Masters says in the same video.

It’s interesting how Americans point to Europe, specifically Western Europe, to legitimate their opinions on such things – and obviously, vice versa.

After this video was released, Masters’ campaign team overhauled his website to tone down the strong pro-life rhetoric that was there a day prior. 

Indeed, his website used to read “I am 100% pro-life”, but that was deleted a day after Roe v Wade was overturned.

Even at Blake Masters’ most extreme point of view, when he expressed support for a legal Act to criminalise abortions 20 weeks after conception, this Republican candidate is still far more progressive compared to most politicians in Malta’s public life.

On Sunday, Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela said new abortion law changes will be tabled in parliament to protect doctors and mothers if termination of pregnancy is needed to protect a woman’s health or life.

But the changes will not decriminalise abortion, and Abela insisted that his government does not have a mandate to make abortion legal. 

Back to Arizona. Incumbent senator Mark Kelly rebutted with his own advert, which came up as a Youtube pre-roll advert. “Blake Masters wants a ban on abortion, even in cases of rape and incest!”.

There was also one advert targeting Nancy Barto, who’s running for State Senator in one of Arizona’s legislative districts. This advert lashes out at Barto for wanting to criminalise doctors for performing abortions. “Should Arizona doctors go to prison for providing abortions? Senator Nancy Barto thinks so.”

“Nancy Barto is just too extreme to be our senator,” the advert concludes.

What’s Roe v Wade?

Roe v Wade is a 50-year-old ruling that legalised abortion nationwide in the US. This granted women a constitutional right to abortion – up until this August. In summer, the Supreme Court struck down the landmark decision, allowing individual states to place bans on abortion. 

This ruling was handed down in relation to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation. This case challenged Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court ruled in favour of the state by a majority vote of six to three, effectively ending the constitutional right to an abortion.

READ ALSO: As Trump eyes presidency bid, Republicans in Arizona are ready to back him again

A still from a campaign video targeting Arizona's incumbent Democrat senator Mark Kelly by accusing him of voting against border funds to stop immigrants bringing drugs into the US

Fentanyl across the border and immigrants

While the Democrats take aim over Roe v Wade, Republicans know it’s best for them to turn their efforts onto other issues. In southern states like Arizona, this includes immigration.

When MaltaToday attended a Republican rally on Saturday, Barto and her campaign team were there. Wearing a baby pink gilet, she told journalists that criminals are being allowed to walk across the border. 

“It hurts that people are just walking across the border and criminals are getting away. Our border control is not being supported. Our border is wide open, allowing drugs, fentanyl, criminals, terrorists even, to cross and endanger our societies and communities.”

The immigration issue is conflated heavily with crime and drugs here. Another woman at the same rally said that people like to spin the narrative on this.

“They want to say ‘Well, Trump was racist’. It’s not about racism, it’s about the amount of fentanyl that’s coming across the border,” she told MaltaToday.

This woman, Suzy, said her daughter is a nurse practitioner in Phoenix. “She said, ‘Mom, the number of overdoses has quadrupled’. Usually you’d see a few every few months, but she said it’s just a massive amount on a monthly basis. She said it’s literally an epidemic.”

With Arizona being a border state, Suzy said that this is the biggest concern. “And it was Trump’s concern. It wasn’t about racism, but the media love to spin.”

When people speak of immigration here, it’s vis-à-vis fentanyl. While watching TV in Arizona, you will likely come across an advert from Citizens for Sanity. These adverts speak to the conservative electorate who want their share of the American dream.

“A record 300 Americans are dying every day from drug overdoses. Many are children. It looks like candy, but inside: fentanyl. Smuggled from across the border. Deadly in the smallest amounts,” the advert goes. 

Naturally, it targets Mark Kelly. “Arizona senator Mark Kelly voted against more border funding. Kelly voted against more border agents. He voted against border security, over and over.”

“Thanks to Mark Kelly, drug cartel profits are up 2,600%. Whose kid will be next?” it says, citing Breitbart on the profit information. 

Here, I go back to what Sybill Francis from the Centre for the Future of Arizona told us on our first day working in Phoenix. 

“Fentanyl is not coming in through immigrants over the border because it would be too dangerous to pass drugs through people who are likely to get caught. Drugs come in through much more legitimate pathways.”

But as in war, elections tend to get messy here and the first victim is always the truth, it would seem.

READ ALSO: MaltaToday in the USA: The midterm elections explained

Nicole Meilak was invited to the United States on a midterm elections tour for journalists by the Embassy of the United States to Malta