Arizona AG: Pre-statehood abortion ban can be enforced

PHOENIX — Arizona’s Republican attorney general announced Wednesday that a pre-statehood law that bans all abortions is enforceable and that he will soon file for the removal of an injunction that has blocked it for nearly 50 years.

Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office said after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 decision that said abortion was a constitutional right that he was weighing whether the old law could be enforced.

His decision puts him at odds with Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. The governor had said after he signed a new law banning abortions after 15 weeks in March that it took precedence over the law in place since at least 1901, 11 years before Arizona statehood.

But abortion opponents who wrote the new law and the Republican state senator who sponsored it, Nancy Barto, argued that the old law could be enforced. They pointed to a specific provision that said it did not override that law.

“Our office has concluded the Legislature has made its intentions clear with regards to abortion laws,” Brnovich said on Twitter. “ARS 13-3603 (the pre-statehood law) is back in effect and will not be repealed” when the new law take effect in late September.

The old law says anyone who helps a pregnant woman obtain an abortion can be sentenced to two to five years in prison. The only exception is if the life of the woman is in jeopardy.

Abortion clinics across Arizona had stopped providing the procedures within hours of last Friday’s ruling. They cited concerns that the old law could be enforced.

Planned Parenthood Arizona President and CEO Brittany Forteno said the possibility of prosecutions was just too risky to continue providing abortion care. Other abortion providers followed suit.

A law that grants eggs and fetuses all rights is also on the books. Abortion rights advocates are asking a judge who refused to block it last year because Roe v. Wade was in effect to reconsider his decision.