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After Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade, a 15-week abortion ban ultimately took effect in Arizona. There was some question, however, as to whether or not that state policy superseded an abortion ban first adopted in 1864 — before Arizona was even a state.
Today, Arizona’s Supreme Court delivered its answer to that question. NBC News reported:
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a 160-year-old near-total abortion ban still on the books in the state is enforceable. ... The ruling allows an 1864 law in Arizona to stand that criminalized abortion by making it a felony punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs or helps a woman obtain one.
After Roe went down, it was common to hear reproductive rights advocates talk about rolling back the clock a half-century. Today's ruling rolls back the clock to a point when obstetricians didn't know they needed to wash their hands.
It was a 4-2 ruling (with one recusal). Every member of the state Supreme Court was appointed by Republicans.
The decision concluded that the near-total abortion ban won’t take effect for 14 days, which will give litigants an opportunity to at least try to explore additional relief from a trial court.
If those efforts fall short, abortion will be illegal in nearly all circumstances across the Grand Canyon State, including in response to pregnancies resulting from rape.
“The decision made by the Arizona Supreme Court today is unconscionable and an affront to freedom,” state Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a written statement. The Democrat added, “Make no mistake, by effectively striking down a law passed this century and replacing it with one from 160 years ago, the Court has risked the health and lives of Arizonans.”
Mayes concluded, “Today’s decision to reimpose a law from a time when Arizona wasn’t a state, the Civil War was raging, and women couldn’t even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state. This is far from the end of the debate on reproductive freedom, and I look forward to the people of Arizona having their say in the matter. And let me be completely clear, as long as I am Attorney General, no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law in this state.”
As for the near-future, abortion rights proponents in Arizona recently announced that they believe they’ve exceeded the signature threshold to put a constitutional amendment on reproductive rights on the state’s ballot in November.
In other words, voters will soon have an opportunity to undo what the state Supreme Court just did. What's more, two of the justices who ruled in the majority today will also be on the ballot.
Arizona also happens to be one of the nation's most closely watched battleground states. Donald Trump suggested yesterday, among other things, that he expects abortion bans to be a state-by-state issue.
The consequences of such a policy are increasingly plain.