The Arizona Supreme Court has upheld a Civil War-era abortion ban. This 4-2 ruling makes nearly all abortion in the state illegal, with exception of cases to save the mother's life.

Phoenix

The Arizona Supreme Court has made a decisive ruling to uphold a Civil War-era abortion ban, effectively rendering the majority of abortion procedures illegal within the state. According to the court's decision, passed with a 4-2 majority, the only exceptions to this near-total ban are in circumstances where the procedure is necessary to save the mother's life. This ruling marks a significant shift in the legal landscape regarding abortion in Arizona, placing stringent limits on the procedure.



Arizona Supreme Court upholds near-total abortion ban

Governor Katie Hobbs, just moments ago, her words, in a nutshell, bring it on, talking about the latest involving a law that was on the books, in this case, dating back to the 1800s, which makes abortion now the law of the land in that state, with the exception of rape and incest and the life of the mother. Let's go back to our national political correspondent, Alex Miller. Alex, I looked at the state Supreme Court, five men, two women, another one of these rulings that will wind up on the ballot. Tell us about this effort now to get a measure on the ballot in 2024 to protect abortion rights in the state, which would overrule, I guess, what the Supreme Court just decided. Yes, it would overrule what the Supreme Court decided for the state of Arizona. So this is a ballot measure that abortion advocates have been working to get signatures for, for the better part of the year. They recently announced that they just had enough signatures to put this on the ballot. It's pretty simple. It makes the right to an abortion part of the state's constitution. So yes, that would supersede this decision by the state Supreme Court if there were enough votes to pass. I need to double check. Every state is different with what the percentage is. For example, Florida has their own abortion ballot measure. This fall, you need 60 percent there to pass. So every state is different. Sometimes it's just a simple majority, but this will be on the ballot. The governor, Katie Hobbs, saying that the ballot box is the way that she believes that voters will be able to have their say and overrule the legislature. One of the things before we went to the governor we were talking about is that this is something that the legislature, that the justices are pushing the legislature on, saying, if you have a problem with this, then you guys can do something about it. Katie Hobbs was actually asked about this and said, the legislature has ignored the will of the voters for decades. Both chambers are run by Republicans right now. I'll also point out that they are expected to end their session on April 20th. So there's not a lot of time. If for some reason they wanted to do something, I expect that they won't. Alex, politics is your lifeblood. It would seem that from a political perspective, the issue of abortion would be the last thing that Republicans in the state of Arizona would want to be on the ballot because each time it is on the ballot, right now it is even on the ballot in Florida, it seems to be a losing issue for Republicans. So how do you explain the politics of what is happening right now versus what may happen? Well, it's really complicated because abortion is actually not as polarizing an issue as I think the people who are running for office continue to make it. When you look at the data, it just doesn't bear that out. Republicans, Democrats and independents all support some level of abortion access. Even when I was speaking about Florida, when I was covering Florida's decision last week to enact a six-week ban, I found out that 1 million registered Republicans were the ones that canvassed to get those signatures for their ballot measure. And so this isn't as popular of an issue just among Democrats. But when you look at the abortion as a whole, when it goes on the ballot, people might still vote for Republicans as we saw in states like Kansas, but they also do support the right to an abortion. So it's not necessarily that if somebody comes out to support abortion in the fall that they're going to vote for the Democrat. They may vote for the Republican, but they also may end up supporting this measure. And there is also that collision course between abortion, which is the old argument, are you pro or against? And then the issue of whether or not there is a woman's right to control decisions about her own body, of which IVF and birth control follows. Yes. I mean, and that's something that we have seen when we saw the backlash in Alabama with this just a couple of months ago, Republican women and men, frankly, coming out against the decision by the Alabama State Supreme Court. We even saw former President Donald Trump yesterday in that video that he posted kind of muddying the waters about his stance on abortion, specifically say that he supports fertility treatments and IVF. So that part, for the most part, I would say is pretty clear that that is not a popular issue, no matter what side of the aisle you're on. It's really much more conservative Republicans that might not support this. But for the most part, the vast majority of people do support the right to have IVF and fertility. My favorite quote was a North Carolina father said, I'm a Republican, but I got a wife and two daughters. I ain't telling either one of them or any of them what to do, end quote. Alex Miller, our national political correspondent for us live in New York. Alex, thank you very much.

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