PHOENIX (AP) – The Republican Attorney General of Arizona announced on Wednesday that the law before the state, which prohibits all abortions, is applicable and that he will soon apply for the abolition of an order that has blocked him for nearly 50 years.
Attorney General Mark Bernovich’s office said that after the US Supreme Court overturned its 1973 ruling that abortion was a constitutional right, it was assessing whether the old law could be enforced.
His decision contradicts Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. The governor said after signing a new law banning abortion 15 weeks later in March that it took precedence over the law, which has been in force since at least 1901, 11 years before the state of Arizona.
But opponents of abortion, who wrote the new law, and the Republican senator who sponsored it, Nancy Barto, argue that the old law can be enforced. They pointed to a specific provision according to which it does not repeal this law.
“Our service has concluded that the legislature has clarified its intentions regarding abortion laws,” Brmovic said on Twitter. “ARS 13-3603 (the law before statehood) is in force again and will not be repealed” when the new law came into force at the end of September.
A spokesman for Ducey CJ Karamargin, the governor’s office, was reviewing Bernovich’s decision and had no immediate comment.
Under the old law, anyone who helped a pregnant woman have an abortion could be sentenced to two to five years in prison. The only exception is if the woman’s life is in danger.
Arizona abortion clinics stopped providing procedures within hours of a Supreme Court ruling last Friday. They cite concerns that the old law could be enforced.
Arizona President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Brittany Forteno said the group was outraged by Bernovich’s decision, which came after providers and patients had been living in trouble since Friday.
“Now our extremist attorney general has announced plans to restore an outdated, 1901 law that would ban all abortions in Arizona until the new law goes into effect,” she said. “This is unscrupulous and drastically inconsistent with 7 out of 10 Arizona residents who support access to abortion.”
In addition to the total ban, the law that gives all rights to eggs and embryos also applies. Proponents of abortion rights are asking a judge who refused to block it last year because Rowe v. Wade was in effect to reconsider his decision. The judge did block the ban on this abortion law due to a genetic abnormality in the fetus.
Following the Supreme Court ruling, about 7,000 to 8,000 abortion protesters gathered at the state Capitol, where the legislature was concluding its annual session.
State police use tear gas to scatter the crowd after a small group of protesters began to hit the glass facade of the US Senate and one person tried to kick a sliding glass door. No arrests or injuries were reported Friday night, but protests lasted two days and several people were arrested.
Bernovich is among several Republicans vying for their party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate in the Aug. 2 primary.
There were just over 13,000 abortions in Arizona in 2020, according to the latest report from the Arizona Department of Health. Of these, less than 650 were performed after 15 weeks of gestation.
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