(LifeSiteNews) — Fox News primetime personality Sean Hannity advised Arizona lawmakers to “get rid of” the state’s newly-enforceable near-total abortion ban Wednesday evening, echoing former President and presumptive Republican White House nominee Donald Trump with a prediction that it “will be fixed in the next week or two.”
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled 4-2 that an 1864 law codified in 1913 that long predates Roe v. Wade was legally enforceable now that Roe has been overturned, and that Arizona’s far more recent 15-week abortion ban was not intended to invalidate it. The decision means that abortion is now illegal in the state for any reason except when allegedly “necessary” to save a mother’s life. Direct abortion is always gravely immoral and never needed nor ethically justified to save a mother’s life, however.
The next day, when asked if Arizona went “too far,” Trump answered, “yeah they did. That’ll be straightened out. As you know it’s all about state’s rights. It’ll be straightened out. I’m sure that the governor and everybody else are gonna bring it back into reason, and I think that will be taken care of very quickly.”
Mediaite reports that during his Wednesday evening show, Hannity embraced that stance to suggest that left-wing consternation about the law was unfounded – not because the law was a good thing in his view, but because he expects the law to soon be repealed anyway.
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“The people on the left are so desperate attacking Trump now for an Arizona Supreme Court ruling that upholds what is a Civil War-era law banning abortion,” he said.
“This will be fixed in the next week or two. Let not your heart be troubled,” Hannity added, blasphemously quoting Jesus Christ (Jn 14:1) while promoting the legal destruction of unborn children.
“Trump opposes the law and this ruling,” he continued, “Or you can believe Joe’s make-pretend Donald Trump that doesn’t exist. And you know what? Arizona’s governor is a Democrat. The state’s attorney general is a Democrat. The state legislature is almost evenly divided. If Democrats – you want to get rid of the law, well, you have a chance right now to get rid of it. And I would advise you, get rid of it!”
“They would rather use it as a political tool ahead of November. Most politicians on the left do not actually care about making your life better,” Hannity concluded, suggesting that permitting the slaughter of the unborn would make people’s lives “better.”
This is not the first sign of Hannity’s leftward turn on abortion. The longtime conservative pundit who devoted an entire chapter of his first book to the pro-life case stunned viewers in August 2023 when, while stressing that “I consider myself pro-life,” advised Republicans to embrace Democrat President Bill Clinton’s infamous “safe, legal, and rare” formulation with the modifier “very early in a pregnancy” for political expediency.
This past March, Hannity urged Republicans to embrace rape and incest exceptions and embryo-destructive in vitro fertilization, as well as heed a 15-week abortion limit as the safest political ground. Both incidents follow Hannity’s 2009 departure from the Catholic Church, which condemns abortion as an intrinsic grave evil that is never permissible.
Hannity’s remarks come amid ongoing consternation over Trump’s newfound opposition to federal abortion bans and months of criticism of state pro-life laws he considers too strong, and fears they will lead to a more lasting dilution of the Republican Party’s longstanding pro-life platform.
Polls currently have Trump and Democrat incumbent President Joe Biden in a popular vote dead heat with a distinct lead for Trump in the Electoral College, although voters also say that convictions in Trump’s various ongoing legal battles would make them less likely to support him. However, serious concern among Democrats over Biden’s age and mental health, and deep dissatisfaction with his job performance, give the current president comparable electoral challenges. How the GOP’s significant pro-life voting bloc takes Trump’s latest comments could further shake the outcome.
Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be a wild card, as he has qualities that appeal to each major candidate’s base. At the moment, the aforementioned polls show Trump’s lead persisting even with Kennedy factored in, but given how close many are predicting the election to be, concern persists that even small defections could impact the outcome. Kennedy recently confirmed that, like Biden, he would also sign legislation codifying a nationwide “right” to abortion.