The US state of Arizona has ruled that a 160-year-old near total abortion ban is enforceable, meaning the Civil War era law would allow for abortion care to be punishable by two to five years in prison.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court made the bombshell decision, meaning abortion can be considered a felony for anyone who performs one or helps a woman obtain one, with the only exception being to save the woman’s life.
The law banning abortion was first passed in the 1800s – before women could vote and before Arizona was even a state.
Following the court’s ruling, Arizona state senator Eva Burch spoke vehemently against the decision saying it’s “outrageous that we would even dignify the consideration of this type of ban”.
“A couple weeks ago, I had an abortion– a safe, legal abortion here in Arizona– for a pregnancy that I very much wanted,” Burch said.
“[It was] a pregnancy that failed, like many of my pregnancies before it. An embryo that was dying and a miscarriage that was destined to happen.”
“Somebody took care of me. Somebody gave me a procedure so that I wouldn’t have to experience another miscarriage. The pain. The mess. The discomfort.”
“And now, we’re talking about whether or not we should put that doctor in jail.”
Calling out the “small number of really extreme political leaders” advocating for this anti-abortion legislation, Burch noted that “we have to look at who our elected leaders are” and that “the time is now” to vote them out.
Calling the decision an “affront to freedom”, Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, declared she would not be enforcing “this draconian law”.
“This is not over from a legal standpoint. My office, as we speak, is discussing what our next steps are. Whether that is appealing this decision to the United States Supreme Court, whether that is taking the opportunity that it would appear the court gave me in taking this decision and the constitutional questions that remain back down to the superior court,” Mayes said. “The 1864 ban is not yet fully litigated.”
Democrats across the board, including President Joe Biden, have expressed outrage over the state’s ruling. They are saying it underscores the urgency of the country’s upcoming presidential election between Biden and Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
“Millions of Arizonans will soon 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,” Biden said in a statement.
Trump said on Monday that abortion laws should be left to the states. It was his appointment of Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn federal protections for abortion (Roe v. Wade) that have led to many states enacting strict, new abortion restrictions.
In a recent video posted to his Truth Social media platform, Trump made several false claims, including that most US citizens and lawmakers were in favour of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. Trump has also refused to take a position on the national abortion ban that’s been promoted by some of his staunchest Republican allies.
The majority of American citizens have consistently said in polling that they were in favour of Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections.
“The girls today and the young women do not have the rights that we once did because of Donald Trump,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat. “Donald Trump is dangerous and reckless.”
The Arizona court’s decision gives the state the strictest abortion law of the top-tier battleground states heading into November’s presidential election.