PHOENIX (AP) – Legal abortions, resumed in Arizona this week after a court blocked enforcement of a pre-state ban, will continue for at least five weeks as an appeals court reviews the case.
A schedule set Tuesday for Planned Parenthood and the Arizona Attorney General’s office attorneys to file their legal briefs in the case means the Arizona Court of Appeals cannot decide the case until at least November 17. The appeals court blocked the enforcement of the civil war. -the law of the Friday era, overturning at least for now a September 23 sentence by a Tucson judge.
Statewide clinics have ceased all abortions after this decision. It was the second time since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade in June and allowed states to ban abortions as clinics stopped serving women. They had ceased treatment after Roe’s cancellation, only to resume in mid-summer after a federal judge blocked a “personality” law that clinics said could be used to sue providers.
At least two of the state’s leading abortion providers restarted operations this week, and a third held consultations on the walk-in abortion pill on Tuesday, but didn’t set a full schedule for future ones. But abortions can now only be performed up to 15 weeks of pregnancy under a law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Republican Governor Doug Ducey in March. The previous limit under the previous one now overturned by the Supreme Court was about 24 weeks.
Planned Parenthood of Arizona had operated surgical abortion clinics in Tucson and Phoenix and provided abortion pills in those cities and Flagstaff prior to the High Court ruling. He only serves Tucson now, but hopes to resume serving Phoenix patients once the staff are in place.
A second major provider, Camelback Family Planning in Phoenix, began providing full abortion services on Monday.
Arizona women seeking abortions have been harmed by competing state laws since the High Court ruling. The new 15-week ban specifically stated not to repeal the pre-state law that prohibited abortions unless the mother’s life was in danger.
The pre-state abortion ban law was blocked by Roe’s 1973 ruling, but Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich asked a Tucson court to allow it to be enforced this summer. The law of 1864 is punishable by imprisonment from two to five years.
Brnovich said the only reason the law was blocked was the Roe decision.
A Tucson judge agreed, dismissing Planned Parenthood and its Arizona affiliate’s arguments that a series of abortion laws enacted since the case should have ignored the old law and overturned the injunction that forbade the question,
But a panel of three appeals court judges overturned that order, at least for the time being.
Tribunal President Peter Eckerstrom wrote on Friday that a stay is appropriate “given the acute need by health care professionals, prosecutors and the public for legal clarity on the application of our criminal laws.” In particular, in the underlying dispute, both parties asked the court for clarification.
Bob Christie, the Associated Press
