In perhaps one of the more endearing campaign ads of the 2022 election season, Arizona Congressional District Six Nominee and former State Senator Kirsten Engel appear with her daughter Helene over a bowl of peas to condemn her Republican opponent Juan Ciscomani and others like Kari Lake and Blake Masters for their embrace of the reinstituted pre-statehood Abortion ban.
With her daughter asking “what’s up with these Arizona Republicans,” former Senator Engel replied:
“Masters, Lake, now Juan Ciscomani. They’re like peas in a pod. On abortion, they’d let politcians make medical decisions.”
To which her daughter Helene chimes in, “shouldn’t they let women do that?”
Engel responds that “Ciscomani would let states outlaw abortion, no exceptions (including rape and incest,) making women and doctors criminals.”
Her daughter, a little angry, replies “wait…what?”
The ad finishes with Ms. Engel stating:
“I’m Kirsten Engel and I approve this message because my daughter’s future and yours is at stake.”
For anyone that thinks that former Senator Engel is engaging in needless dramatics, please remember the 14 year old teenager from Tucson last week who had to cringe and wait for two days for life saving medication because the Walgreens Pharmacy she went to wanted to make sure they could legally distribute the prescription (which could also be used to induce abortions.)
Voters should not want to support candidates that will endanger young women’s safety and lives.
They should support candidates that will protect reproductive freedom and ensure that abortions, to quote Bill Clinton, are “safe, legal, and rare.”
Juan Ciscomani is not that candidate.
Kirsten Engel is.