Arizona Marches 160 Years Backward

Arizona’s Supreme Court has upheld an 1864 law banning abortion. That’s making Republicans nervous about their election campaign.

Seven months before the presidential election, Republicans were hit with a court ruling in Arizona that is actually entirely in their interest ideologically. On Tuesday, the state’s Supreme Court reinstated an 1864 law making performing an abortion punishable by imprisonment except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

The decision is based on the elimination of a woman’s federal right to seek an abortion, which was guaranteed from 1973 until 2022 by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.

Although strict anti-abortion laws have been in effect since 2022 in some conservative states, abortion was still possible in Arizona until now. A petition in favor of enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution has collected enough signatures to appear on the November ballot. The conservative state of Ohio passed a similar referendum last November.

This is making Republicans nervous. Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, Democrats can score almost anywhere with the issue of abortion; even female Republican voters are not happy about having their rights taken away. Arizona is one of the six swing states that will be determinative in the presidential election. In 2020, Joe Biden won the state by merely 11,000 votes. Republicans there don’t need an issue that will mobilize the other side.

And so now even Kari Lake, who as an outspoken Trump supporter lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs in the 2022 gubernatorial election, is urgently calling on the Republican-controlled Congress and the Democratic governor to swiftly develop legal regulations that prevent reinstating the law from 1864. Not so long ago, Lake campaigned for exactly that. However, she wants to win a senate election in November; and Republicans know that will not go well.

There is a little time left. Arizona’s Supreme Court, whose eight justices were all appointed by Republican governors, also ruled on Tuesday to suspend reinstating the old law for the time being until a county court considers any constitutional challenges.