Siding with the majority of voters, Congressional candidate Kirsten Engel said she will work to restore reproductive rights. She is running for the open seat in Tucson’s Congressional District 6, and she spoke at the September 12, 2022, meeting of Democrats of Greater Tucson.
“I am committed to guaranteeing women’s fundamental freedom,” she said. “It is a freedom for women to make their own health care decisions, their own decisions about whether or not they want to follow through with a risky or unwanted pregnancy. And I believe strongly that we have to respect people who are pregnant to make those decisions for themselves.”
Her polling data found that not only are 60% of the voters in the district pro-choice but 60%
believe that the Republicans who are running for office are too extreme for Arizona.
If these dangerous Republicans are elected, “They very likely to pass a national abortion ban and undercut voting rights on the national level, as opposed to doing the opposite, which is what we want,” she said.
“This is not an area for government mandates or government interference. We know the larger agenda here from the Republicans is not just to undercut these reproductive healthcare rights. It’s also to undercut other rights that have been protected by privacy in the Constitution, from contraceptive use to marry whom you love,” she said. “I am committed to working on codifying Roe v. Wade in Congress and working to protect these other privacy rights. As a woman myself and as a mom of a teenage daughter. These issues are very personal to me.”
Opponent undermined schools and Covid policy
She said her campaign is one of a few nationally that is backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and listed Arizona as a “red to blue” state.
Her opponent, Juan Ciscomani — an empty suit with no elected experience — “cheered the repeal of Roe v. Wade. ”
“He knows as well as anyone that repealing Roe v. Wade opens the door to absolute bans on abortion. This is unacceptable, and it is one of the scariest parts of the risk that he could win this election.’
“He is somebody who has been a yes-man in the Ducey administration. He worked for the Governor for seven years as a high-level aide, during Gov. Ducey was underfunding our schools and doing a horrific job in terms of Covid.”
“Did we ever hear him objecting and sticking up for our public schools, for advocating for more health policies for Covid? Did we ever hear him telling Governor not to sign any gun bills that weakened measures to protect us from gun violence? No.
“He paints a picture of somebody who is extreme, who doesn’t care about individual rights, who is willing to go along with the extreme Republican party,” she said.
Water shortage
Kirsten rejected the idea of desalinating sea water at the border as a source of new water. “If we were to start today, we wouldn’t see a drop of water from desalinization for another ten years.” Not only that, but desalinated water is very expensive.
The market rate to buy water is $200 per acre-foot. However, desalinated water costs $2,500 per acre-foot.
