Arizona Republicans Thwart Attempts to Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban

A decision by Arizona’s highest court upholding an 1864 ban on nearly all abortions created chaos and confusion across the battleground state on Wednesday. Patients hunted for answers and Democratic lawmakers shouted “Save women’s lives!” as their efforts to repeal the law were frustrated by Republican leaders.

Democrats, who have criticized the decision resurrecting a 160-year-old abortion ban that has no exceptions for rape or incest, quickly tried to push bills through the Republican-controlled state Legislature that would repeal the ban — a move they said would protect women’s health and freedom and also force Republicans to take a formal vote to support the law or strike it down.

But Republican leaders in the Senate removed one bill from the day’s agenda on Wednesday, legislative aides said. In the other chamber, a Republican House member who has done a political about-face and called for striking down the law made a motion to vote on a Democratic repeal bill that has sat stalled for months. But Republican leaders quickly put the House into recess before any vote could be held.

Democrats on the Senate floor jeered as their Republican colleagues filed out of the chamber.

“I don’t see why we wouldn’t move forward,” said State Senator Anna Hernandez, Democrat of Phoenix. “Are they serious about this or are they not?” she said of the Republicans. “Are they just backpedaling when they realize they’re on the losing side of a policy battle?”

Despite the pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to undo the law, it was uncertain whether Republican leaders, who narrowly control both chambers of the legislature, would allow any immediate action on proposals to repeal the ban.

The president of the State Senate and speaker of the State House, both Republicans, issued a joint statement emphasizing that the court’s ruling had not yet taken effect and probably would not for weeks, as the legal fight over the 1864 law heads back to a lower court for additional arguments over its constitutionality. They said they were reviewing the ruling and would listen to their voters to determine what the legislature should do.

Axios reported that Ben Toma, the Republican speaker, opposed a repeal and said he would not allow a vote on it.

The moves in the Legislature came as clinics and patients scrambled to make sense of the legal and administrative confusion left in the wake of the 4-2 vote by Arizona’s high court, with little certainty about just when the 160-year-old ban would go back into effect.

The decision — and the rising anger about it — has exposed divisions among Arizona’s Republicans over their support for abortion restrictions. The uproar highlighted how abortion has become a political vulnerability for Republicans in a post-Roe America, even in traditionally conservative states.

Some Arizona Republicans who had previously voted to support abortion restrictions or give legal protection to fetuses abruptly shifted course on Tuesday concerning the 1864 law, and called for a repeal or some other legislative fix.

On Wednesday, former President Donald J. Trump, who has claimed credit for appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion, said Arizona’s high court had gone too far, and said he believed “that will be straightened out.”

But the state’s far-right Freedom Caucus praised the court’s ruling, saying it protected innocent lives, and vowed to oppose efforts to undo it.

At abortion clinics in Phoenix, doctors said on Wednesday that the court’s decision had created new anxiety and uncertainty. Phones have been ringing constantly at Camelback Family Planning, with patients asking whether they can still get services, and for how long, according to Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick, the clinic’s owner and medical director.

“They’re just freaking out,” Dr. Goodrick said.

She said her clinic had twice before been forced to temporarily stop providing abortions in the legal uncertainty after Roe v. Wade was overturned. The threat of having to stop again because of the 1864 ban, she said, would upend services at clinics and threaten her patients’ health.

“We’re living in a dystopia,” she said. “I’m hoping the Legislature will do something. This is not what Arizonans want.”