ABOUT ARIZONA’S 1864 ABORTION LAW

Donald Trump had really lousy timing to announce Monday that he wanted to return abortion policy back to the states as it was before Roe v. Wade and promptly on Tuesday, Arizona returned back to 1864, with an ancient ban on the medical procedure. Oh, Arizona is one of the five states that Trump won in 2016 and then lost to Joe Biden in 2020. Oops.

What’s next, some ban going back to colonial times? The political problem is all Trump’s as he scrabbles to contain the fallout he created, while Arizona doctors could soon face two to five years in prison for providing an abortion.

The old law that is the new law bans humanely and compassionately terminating pregnancies for rape and incest victims and in instances of certain fetal death or when the mother’s health would be irreversibly impaired, including making her unable to become pregnant again. The sole exception in the 19th century law is to save the woman’s own life.

As Trump likes to brag (and as he did so again on Monday), he did this, having stacked the U.S. Supreme Court with three hardliner justices who joined Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas to overthrow a half-century of settled law and stare decisis, apparently the Latin phrase for we get to do whatever we want to do.

Trump was correct after the Dobbs opinion came down nearly two years ago, that it would be bad for Republicans. And it’s getting worse. …

Arizona voters may have an abortion question on the ballot this November (such a question is still yet to be certified) and if so, they will likely vote the same way Americans in every other state have voted to support abortion rights and oppose abortion bans.

And even if there is no referendum, the voters will know who set their state back 160 years.