The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that abortion is illegal in nearly all circumstances, returning the state to a 160-year-old pre-state law that criminalized abortion.
The law also provides that “any person who furnishes, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman any medicine, drug or substance, or uses or uses any instrument or other means for the purpose of causing it to be ingested by such woman.” is a serious crime. “Unless it is necessary to save a life, such women will be ordered to miscarry,” which carries a sentence of two to five years in prison.
law, The law was codified in 1913, after Arizona became a state, and includes an exception if the mother’s life is in danger.
Protesters join thousands of others marching around the Arizona State Capitol in response to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, Friday, June 24, 2022, in Phoenix. screamed. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
The law will not be repealed, and a state court last year allowed the ban to continue as long as it complies with a 2022 law that would allow women to obtain abortions within 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In a 4-2 decision Tuesday, the court ruled that the 2022 law “does not create a right to abortion that repeals or restricts the 1913 law, or that it does not create a separate legal right to abortion that would repeal or limit the 1913 law.” It does not confer authority.”
Instead, the court’s majority said, “it is entirely premised on the existence of a federal constitutional right to abortion since it was waived” by the Roe v. Wade reversal.
The 160-year-old law is “currently enforceable” and will take effect within 14 days, the opinion said. Tuesday’s long-awaited ruling came as the Supreme Court heard arguments in the four-month-old case.
Previous restrictions on abortion in North Dakota are being challenged in court by what was once the state’s only abortion clinic. Pictured is an abortion clinic in Idaho. (Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“The decision handed down today by the Arizona Supreme Court is unconscionable and an affront to liberty,” Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays (D) said in a statement. “Make no mistake, by effectively repealing a law passed this century and replacing it with a law from 160 years ago, the court has put the health and lives of Arizonans at risk.”
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“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,” the statement continued.
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