PHOENIX .- The Supreme Court of Arizona ruled Tuesday that the state can implement its long-dormant law that criminalizes all types of abortions except when the mother’s life is at risk.
The case reviewed whether the state remains subject to a law that predated the creation of the state of Arizona. The 1864 law does not provide exceptions in cases of rape or incest, but allows abortion if the mother’s life is in danger. The ruling by the state’s highest court reviewed a 2022 decision by the state Court of Appeals that said doctors could not be charged for performing the procedure in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
An earlier ruling blocked implementation of the 1864 law shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing the constitutional right to abortion. After the highest US court overturned that ruling in June 2022, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich persuaded a state judge in Tucson to lift the block on the 1864 law. Brnovich’s Democratic successor, Attorney General Kris Mayes had asked the state Supreme Court to side with the Court of Appeals and uphold the 1864 law.
Since the 2022 federal Supreme Court ruling to end abortion rights nationwide, most Republican-governed states have begun implementing new bans or restrictions and most Democratic-governed states have sought to protect access to abortion.
Currently, 14 states are implementing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. Two states prohibit the procedure once cardiac activity is detected, which occurs around six weeks of pregnancy.
Almost every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked implementation of some restrictions, such as bans on the procedure throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming.
A proposal pending before the Arizona Legislature that would repeal the 1864 law has not received a committee hearing this year.
“Today’s decision to reintroduce a law from a time when Arizona was not a state, the Civil War was at its height, and women couldn’t even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state,” Mayes said on Tuesday.
The justices said the state can begin implementing the law in 14 days.
Former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who signed the state’s current law restricting abortion after 15 weeks, posted on X that Tuesday’s ruling was not the outcome he would have wanted.
“I signed the 15-week law into law when I was governor because it is a thoughtful policy, and an approach to this sensitive issue that Arizonans can agree with,” he said.
For his part, President Joe Biden said Arizona’s 1864 law was cruel.
“Millions of Arizona residents will now live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest,” he said in a statement. “Vice President (Kamala) Harris and I stand with the majority of Americans who support women’s right to choose. “We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and ask Congress to pass a law that restores the protections of Roe v. Wade.”
However, those who support the right to life from the mother’s womb affirm that they must defend those who have no voice and have had their right to be born taken away.
Source: AP
