Arizona Supreme Court Upholds Abortion Ban From Before Women Were Allowed To Vote
That's certainly one way to do it.
Republican supreme court justices from Arizona have discovered one weird trick to outlawing abortion in their state, finding 4-2 in favor of Dr. Eric Hazelrigg, a man who ever-so-preciously declared himself “guardian ad litem for all Arizona unborn infants,” and resurrecting laws from a time before the majority of people affected by the law were allowed to vote.
In accordance with the 1864 law, the court’s majority opinion ruled that “physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal” and that should they perform one they can expect criminal prosecution. It did not specify whether those who seek them ought to also be institutionalized for ladybrain diseases like hysteria or if they could perhaps simply be cured of their desire to control their own reproductive futures by a magnetizer controlling the “animal magnetism” fluids in their blood with a wave of his hands.
Or maybe all they need are some smelling salts to put their wandering wombs back in their places. Because yes, that is literally why women at that time carried around smelling salts. Doctors thought their uterus just might be floating around their bodies, making them crazy, and that bad smells would send them back to their rightful place. This was a normal belief that people had at the time that they came up with this law.
But physicians (and, one assumes, barber surgeons) don’t have to be “on notice” just yet, as the ruling is on hold until a lower court can weigh in on the constitutionality of the old timey law.
Via New York Times:
Planned Parenthood Arizona, the plaintiff, and other abortion-rights supporters argued that the 1864 ban, which had sat dormant for decades, had essentially been overtaken by years of subsequent Arizona laws regulating and limiting abortion — primarily, a 2022 law banning abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy.
But the territorial-era ban was never repealed. And the Arizona Supreme Court said Arizona’s Legislature had not created a right to abortion when it passed the 15-week ban. Because the federal right to abortion in Roe v. Wade had now been overturned, nothing in federal or state law prevented Arizona from enforcing the near-total ban, the court wrote.
“Because the federal constitutional right to abortion that overrode § 13-3603 no longer exists, the statute is now enforceable,” the court’s four-person majority wrote, using the statutory number of the 1864 ban.
This is obviously an absolutely horrific decision for anyone in Arizona who can get pregnant, but it’s also pretty bad news for Arizona Republicans running for office who now stand very little chance of winning in a state where 61 percent believe it should be legal in all or most cases and only 6 percent believe it should be illegal in all cases.
It says a lot that, in their fight against abortion and reproductive rights, the Right has to go all the way back to the Victorian era, with its ridiculous abortion laws, Comstock laws and, I’m just going to assume here, arsenic complexion tablets (I mean, it would explain some things). People haven’t wanted to live this way for a really long time, and most people probably didn’t want to live that way back then either, only they didn’t have the power to change things. Now we do.
So perhaps the ones who should really be “on notice” are those who think that Arizonans and others in states that try to pull this nonsense will not use that power to crush their tradwife dreams.
PREVIOUSLY:
Two of the seven Republican-appointed judges on the AZ supreme court are up for election this year, in an up-or-down retention vote. I have a feeling that people will actually pay attention to that part of the ballot for a change — this year and in future elections.
Wandering Wombs is the all women Traveling Wilburys cover band supergroup.