The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state can enforce a long-dormant law that criminalizes all abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger.
The case examined whether the state’s pre-Arizona laws still apply.
The 1864 law makes no exceptions for rape or incest, but allows abortion if the mother’s life is in danger.
The state high court’s decision revisited a state appellate court’s 2022 ruling that said doctors cannot be prosecuted if they perform a procedure within the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a constitutional right to abortion, an older court ruling blocked the 1864 law from taking effect.
After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June 2022, then-Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich persuaded a state judge in Tucson to lift a block on enforcement of the 1864 law.
Mr. Brnovich’s Democratic successor, Attorney General Chris Mays, had asked the state high court to side with the Court of Appeals and put the 1864 law on hold.
“Today’s decision to reimpose laws from a time when Arizona was not a state, the Civil War was raging, and women couldn’t even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state,” Mays said Tuesday. Ta.
