Arizona Lawmakers Vote To Repeal Civil War-Era Abortion Ban

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The Democratic-led Arizona House of Representatives have voted to repeal a Civil War-era total ban on abortion which could soon go into effect unless the Republican-led Senate votes to keep it on the books, Reuters reports. The ban was passed by the 1st Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1864, before Arizona became a state in 1912.

The ban was revived by Arizona’s state Supreme Court on April 9: the law can potentially be implemented since the US Supreme Court in 2022 revoked the federal right to abortion up to viability, leaving the issue of abortion up to individual states to decide.

Democratic officials and lawmakers condemned the state Supreme Court’s decision. Vowing that her office would not enforce the ban, Democratic Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes said in a statement: “Today’s decision to reimpose a law from a time when Arizona wasn’t a state, the Civil War was raging and women couldn’t even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state.”

Wednesday’s vote in the Arizona House of Representatives passed 32-28, with three Republican lawmakers crossing party lines to join all 29 Democrats in voting to repeal the 1864 abortion ban, Reuters said.

The GOP holds a 16-14 majority in Arizona’s Senate and could vote on the ban from May 1, Reuters reports. In the event the Senate decides to dispense with the 1864 ban, Arizona’s 2022 law which bans abortion at 15 weeks’ gestation will remain in place.

Latest Worthy News