Liam Conner
Arizona Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs relegated a Ban on most abortions during the Civil War to the past by signing a repeal bill on Thursday.
Hobbs says the measure is just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona. But the repeal may only come into force 90 days after the end of the legislative session, in June or July. Abortion rights advocates hope a court will intervene to prevent this outcome.
The effort to repeal the long-dormant law, which bans all abortions except those performed to save a patient’s life, won final legislative approval on Wednesday in a 16-14 vote in the Senate, when two Republican lawmakers joined the Democrats.
Hobbs denounced “a prohibition that was passed by 27 men before Arizona even became a state, at a time when America was at war over the right to own slaves.”
“This ban needs to be repealed, I said that in 2022 when Roe was overturned, and I said that repeatedly as governor,” Hobbs said.
Voting went on for hours as senators described their motivations in personal, emotional and even biblical terms — including graphic descriptions of abortion procedures and amplified audio recordings of fetal heartbeats, along with warnings against the dangers of “legislating beliefs religious.”
Matt York/AP
At the same time, on Wednesday, supporters of an abortion rights initiative in South Dakota submitted far more signatures than needed to get on the ballot this fall, while in Florida a ban went into effect against most abortions. after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant.
Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, an opponent of a near-total abortion ban, said the earliest the latent abortion ban law could be enforced would be June 27, although she has asked the highest court of the state to block the application until the end of July. . But the anti-abortion group advocating the ban, Alliance Defending Freedom, says county prosecutors could begin enforcing it as soon as the Supreme Court ruling becomes final, which it hasn’t yet.
The near-total ban offers no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. On a decision last monthThe Arizona Supreme Court suggested that doctors could be prosecuted under a law first passed in 1864, which provides for a sentence of two to five years in prison for anyone assisting in an abortion.
A repeal means a 2022 law banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become Arizona’s prevailing abortion law.
Arizona Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a Democrat who has been instrumental in the fight to repeal the territorial abortion ban, said she spent her early years on the Navajo Nation, where her parents were teachers, and saw firsthand people being denied their reproductive rights. .
She also watched her sister-in-law struggle through two difficult pregnancies that resulted in stillbirths.
“My daughter, who is 17 years old, if this law went into effect, would have fewer reproductive freedoms than her great-grandmother in 1940 and in Texas, who had to have an abortion,” said Stahl Hamilton. “We have people who need reproductive care right now.”
President Biden’s campaign team believes anger over the Roe v. Wade gives them a political advantage in swing states like Arizona, although the issue has divided Republican leaders.
Abortion ban supporters in the Senate gallery on Wednesday jeered and interrupted Republican state Sen. Shawnna Bolick as she explained her vote in favor of repeal, joining Democrats. Bolick is married to state Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, who voted in April to allow an 1864 abortion law to be enforced again. He faces a retention election in November.
The 19th century law had been blocked since the Roe v. Wade decision. Wade of the US Supreme Court in 1973 guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion throughout the country.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, persuaded a state judge that the 1864 ban could be enforced. Still, the law was not actually enforced while the case was working its way through the courts.
Planned Parenthood Arizona filed a motion Wednesday afternoon asking the state Supreme Court to avoid a pause on abortion services until the Legislature’s repeal takes effect.
Advocates are collecting signatures for a ballot measure that would allow abortion until the fetus can survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with exceptions — to save the parents’ lives or to protect their physical or mental health.
Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, are considering placing one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot.
Ronald Yunis, a Phoenix obstetrician-gynecologist who also performs abortions, called the repeal a positive development for patients who might otherwise leave Arizona to seek medical care.
“This is good to ensure that women will not have to travel to other states just to get the health care they need,” Yunis said. “I wasn’t too worried because I have a lot of confidence in our governor and the attorney general. I am sure they will continue to find ways to protect women.”
