United States: Arizona Justice Re-Established Nineteenth-Century Law Banning Abortion

In the southwestern United States, the Arizona Justice reinstated a near-total ban on abortion dating back to 1864 and restricts under threat of criminal consequences the voluntary interruption of pregnancy (IVE) in that state, except in case of danger to the mother. Kellie Johnson, a Pima County Superior Court judge, decided to withdraw the suspension of this pre-state rule, which had been suspended in 1973 following the historic Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the country. But last June, the annulment of this ruling by the high court again left the legislation on this right in the hands of each state. So Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, urged the reinstatement of the old rules.” We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislator and giving clarity and uniformity to this very important issue,” Brnovich said after learning of the ruling. On the other hand, as reported by public radio NPR, local IVE providers must cease abortive practices with chemical, pharmacological or surgical means under threat of sentences of between two and five years in prison. As for the White House, authorities condemned the decision as “catastrophic, dangerous and unacceptable” and warned that it “places Arizona’s women more than a century ago, when Arizona wasn’t even a state.” Victims of rape and incest will be forced to carry the child of the aggressors,” said Joe Biden, who vowed to continue working to get an abortion rights law passed at the federal level. In Arizona itself, a new law banning abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy, which had been passed earlier this year, will go into effect tomorrow.

Original source in Spanish