Arizona Supreme Court revives 19th century law banning abortion

The Supreme Court of the state of Arizona (USA) on Tuesday, April 9, banned abortion in almost all cases by recovering a law of 1864, which makes said procedure illegal, except in those cases in which aborting saves the life of the pregnant woman.

The court ruled 4-2 in favor of an anti-abortion obstetrician and a county prosecutor who took on defending the law after the state's Democratic attorney general refused to do so.

Justice John Lopez, who like all members of the court was appointed by a Republican governor, wrote that to date, the state legislature “has never affirmatively created a right to elective abortion, nor has it independently authorized one.”

“We defer, as we are constitutionally obligated to do, to the judgment of the legislature, which is responsible and, therefore, reflects the mutable will of our citizens,” López wrote.

The state high court lifted its stay on the application of the 19th century law, but will only allow it to be applied prospectively. It suspended the implementation of its decision for 14 days to allow the parties to raise outstanding issues before the trial court.

lArizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, called the ruling “inconceivable and an affront to freedom” in a statement. and stressed that he would not prosecute any doctor or woman under the “draconian law.”

“Today's decision to reimpose a law from a time when Arizona was not a state, the Civil War raged and women could not even vote, will go down in history as a stain on our state“, said.

Although Mayes said he would not enforce the law, local prosecutors could. One of them, Republican Yavapai County Prosecutor Dennis McGrane, had intervened in the litigation to defend the law in order to enforce it.

The ruling marks the latest legal setback for abortion rights, following last week's ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that cleared the way for a Republican-backed law banning abortion after six weeks to go into effect. pregnancy.

The Supreme Court of the United States, with a conservative majority, annulled in June 2022 the historic 'Roe v. Wade' ruling (1973), which had made access to abortion a constitutional right throughout the country.

President Joe In a statement, Biden described the Arizona sentence as the “result of the extreme agendato Republican elected officials who are committed to uprooting women's freedom.”

“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 in danger or in tragic cases of rape or incest,” said the president of the United States.

Read also50 years of 'Roe v. Wade' with commemorations in the United States

“Voters can decide”

Fourteen other states have banned almost all abortions since the US Supreme Court ruling.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said April 8 that abortion access should be determined by the states and stopped short of proposing a national ban that could jeopardize his chances with undecided voters in the November election. .

In Arizona, the issue could ultimately be decided by voters, after a group of abortion rights advocates said last week that it had gathered enough signatures to put on the November ballot a measure that would enshrine it in the U.S. Constitution. state the right to abortion until fetal viability.

Pro-abortion rights measures have prevailed everywhere they have gone to the polls since the Supreme Court decision.

In the case of the Arizona Supreme Court, it is about an 1864 law that prohibited abortions except to save the life of the woman and imposed a penalty of up to five years in prison for anyone who performed an abortion.

The nonprofit Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions and other health services, sued the state in 1971 to challenge the 1864 law. A judge ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood and issued an order blocking the law, following the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In March 2022, the then governor, Republican Doug Ducey, signed the new law that prohibited abortion after fifteen weeks. Like the 1864 statute, it carries a penalty of up to five years in prison for anyone who performs or assists a woman in obtaining an abortion.

In July 2022, then-Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a motion in the Planned Parenthood case to challenge the court order blocking the 1864 law and allowing prosecutors to enforce the ban. A court granted that request in September 2022.

After Planned Parenthood appealed, a state appeals court in December 2022 again blocked enforcement of the 1864 ban against doctors, although it allowed enforcement against non-doctors who perform abortions. The state's newly elected Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, and Attorney General Mayes declined to appeal further.

That led obstetrician Eric Hazelrigg and McGrane to intervene in the case to defend the 1864 law before the state Supreme Court. Hazelrigg runs a network of centers where pregnant women are advised not to have abortions.

Read alsoEnd of abortion rights in the US: What will happen after the Supreme Court ruling?

They are represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that is behind other challenges to abortion rights, including an attempt to restrict access to the abortion pill.

Supreme Court Vice President Ann Timmer, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, dissented from Tuesday's ruling, saying that if the legislature had intended the near-total ban on abortion came into force, it could have done so during its 2023 session.

“In my opinion, the majority wrongly returns us to the territorial-era abortion statute that last went into effect in 1973,” he said. “I would leave it to the people and the legislature to determine the course of Arizona after the demise of Roe.”

With Reuters