Arizona Reinstated a 160-Year-Old Abortion Ban
Arizona’s highest court today ruled that an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions “is now enforceable.” With the federal right to abortion now overturned, the justices explained, there was nothing stopping the state from reinstating its long-dormant prohibition.
The court put its ruling on hold for the moment, allowing two weeks for arguments about the ban’s constitutionality. The state would then wait another 45 days before enforcing the restriction. But if the law goes into effect, it will have far-reaching consequences for both abortion access and national politics.
Until now, abortion has been legal in Arizona through 15 weeks of pregnancy. But the 1864 law, which was enacted many decades before Arizona became a state, outlaws abortion from the moment of conception, except when the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother. It makes no exceptions for rape or incest, and doctors prosecuted under the law could face two to five years in prison.
Abortion rights supporters said the measure would put women’s health in jeopardy. Clinics in Arizona could soon close, forcing women seeking abortions to travel to California, New Mexico or Colorado to end their pregnancies.
The decision also places Arizona, a critical battleground state, at the center of a debate that could help decide November’s presidential election. Democrats condemned the court’s ruling, though they also said it would help galvanize their supporters. Several Arizona Republicans, sensing political peril, also criticized the ruling. The Senate candidate Kari Lake called the law “out of step with Arizonans.”
For more: Here is a map of where abortion is legal, and where it is banned.