Arizona GOP lawmakers block abortion ban repeal ahead of likely ballot measure

Republican lawmakers in Arizona’s Legislature chose different responses to the question of whether to repeal the state’s 1864 law banning abortion April 17. Some Republicans in the state Senate allowed that chamber to proceed to a repeal vote, while Republicans in the state House blocked a comparable effort.

Republicans narrowly control both Statehouse chambers, meaning that even if the Senate votes to repeal the abortion ban, lawmakers in the House may continue to block the effort.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled April 9 that the Civil War-era near-total abortion ban — still on the books in the state — is enforceable following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and related abortion precedents with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.

Arizona’s highest court found that after Dobbs, in the absence of a federal or state law preventing Arizona from enforcing the 19th-century abortion ban, which has an exception for the life of a mother, the state could enforce the law that had become dormant following Roe. It also found the 1864 law supersedes a 15-week abortion ban passed by the state in 2022.

But the high court also paused their ruling in order to send the case back to a lower state court to hear additional arguments.

However, Arizona may have the issue of abortion on its ballot in November, which could undo both those restrictions.

The state House GOP’s move to block the abortion ban’s repeal comes in contrast to comments made the previous week by former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who said during a campaign stop in Atlanta that the Arizona abortion ban “needs to be straightened out.”

“And I’m sure that the governor and everybody else will bring it back into reason and that will be taken care of,” he said.

However, Arizona’s ban prohibits abortions where they most occur: the first trimester. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2020 found that 93.1% of abortions were performed at less than 13 weeks’ gestation, meaning restrictions on abortion outside the first trimester — such as Arizona’s 15-week ban — would have a very limited impact on the occurrence of legal abortion.

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred and must be respected from conception to natural death and, as such, opposes direct abortion as an act of violence that takes the life of the unborn child.

In a joint statement regarding the April 9 ruling, the bishops of the Arizona Catholic Conference — Bishops John P. Dolan of Phoenix, Edward J. Weisenburger of Tucson and James S. Wall of Gallup, New Mexico (whose diocese includes a portion of Arizona), as well as Phoenix Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo A. Nevares — said they “respect the life and human dignity of all people, from conception until natural death.”

“In this regard, we will always stand ready to continue to serve the most vulnerable in our communities, especially preborn children and their mothers,” the group said, adding the ruling means the existing law is “currently the law of the land.”

“By a 4-2 decision, the Court ruled that Arizona’s pre-Roe law protecting unborn human life from the moment of conception, with a life of the mother exception, is still valid,” they said.

However, the bishops noted that “a far-reaching pro-abortion initiative is being circulated that, if approved by voters, will ultimately dictate Arizona law in this regard.”

“This initiative, among other things, would likely remove most safeguards for girls and women that are currently in place at abortion clinics, permit a minor to obtain an abortion without parental involvement or permission, and allow for painful late-term abortions of viable preborn children,” the bishops’ continued. “We do not believe that this extreme initiative is what Arizona wants or needs, and we continue to pray that it does not succeed.”

The Arizona Catholic Conference has urged Catholics and other citizens of Arizona not to sign that petition.

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