A 15-week abortion ban in Arizona can take effect and doctors cannot be charged under a more than 100-year-old pre-statehood law that bans nearly all abortions, the Court ruled Friday. of Appeals of Arizona.
The 15-week law was passed by the state legislature earlier this year after the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and is much less restrictive than the near-total ban of 1864, which the appeals court decided not to strike down but said it can’t. apply to health professionals.
The appeals court ruled that laws passed since 1864 allow doctors to perform the procedure; however, non-health professionals would still be subject to punishment.
Physicians are subject to violating the 15-week ban.
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A 15-week abortion ban is now law in Arizona.
(AP Photo/Matt York)
Arizona Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich had called for the pre-statehood ban to be enforced following Roe’s overturning.
Democrat Kris Mayes, who defeated her Republican challenger to succeed Brnovich as attorney general following a recount Thursday, said she does not plan to enforce the 15-week ban, according to FOX 10 Phoenix.
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“Under this construction, our contemporary statutes allow physicians to perform elective abortions for up to fifteen weeks, but only pursuant to a series of exacting regulations,” the appeal ruling read, according to FOX 10. “Our original law continues to prohibit abortions under all circumstances not permitted by that subsequent legislation”.
Arizona Attorney General-elect Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said she has no plans to enforce the state’s 15-week abortion ban.
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Abortion providers stopped providing the procedure in the state after Roe was struck down, restarting it in mid-July after a court blocked a “personality” law that gave legal rights to unborn children and stopped again when a Tucson judge allowed the 1864 law to be enforced
Other states that have strict abortion laws include Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Bans in Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming are also not in effect, at least for now, while courts decide whether they can be enforced.
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Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in October that she would use “discretion” to comply with the law, whatever that ends up being.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
