Two (2) AZ Republicans Help Repeal Terrible 1864 Abortion Ban, Leaving Only *Normal* Terrible Abortion Ban!
Two (2) AZ Republicans Help Repeal Terrible 1864 Abortion Ban, Leaving Only *Normal* Terrible Abortion Ban!
Katie Hobbs is expected to sign it so fast your head will spin.
You know what’s really not a great idea? Taking any medical advice from a time period in which people put up arsenic wallpaper, treated tuberculosis (sorry, consumption) with strychnine, and huffed formaldehyde when they had a cold.
As such, the Arizona Senate decided yesterday to kick the state’s terrible 1864 absolute abortion ban to the curb, and Governor Katie Hobbs is expected to sign that shit into law today. Shockingly enough, two Republicans, Sens. T.J. Shope and Shawnna Bolick, decided that they didn’t want to live in the Victorian era either and voted with Democrats on the bill, resulting in a 16-14 vote to repeal the ban.
Alas, Arizona is not out of the woods (or, being that it’s Arizona, saguaro fields) yet. Due to procedural issues that will keep the repeal from going into effect for 90 days, the near-total ban may still be the law for a short time starting on June 27, complicating things for those who will need abortions during that time. It also means the state will revert to the not-quite-as-terrible-but-still-bad 15-week ban until citizens are able to vote the right to abortion into their state constitution this coming November.
Gov. Katie Hobbs is asking the Arizona state supreme court — which already allowed the old 1864 law to go into effect, thus necessitating this repeal — to make an exception and allow the repeal to happen immediately so that there is no confusion and interruption in care.
Via Washington Post:
In an interview after Wednesday’s vote, Hobbs said she hopes the Arizona Supreme Court delays implementation of the 1864 measure, given the legislature’s votes to repeal the law and her expressed intent to sign the repeal measure into law.
“I do believe there will be a motion to stay the ban and the court should listen to the legislative intent on this,” Hobbs said. She added that the debate around the old abortion law has sown “chaos and confusion” among Arizonans about their rights and their own lives.
Strategically speaking, this may be a bit of a blessing in disguise as it will likely give Democrat Ruben Gallego an edge over the notoriously blurry conspiracy theorist Kari Lake. Even with the repeal of the most terrible, absolute, Wild West-era ban, the 15-week ban will still be on the books. While most people aren’t getting abortions at 15 weeks, the people who are getting them are generally, usually, doing so because there’s something terribly wrong with the pregnancy. And that’s something that people don’t like legislating against either!
The most recent poll I can find is from 2014 and shows Arizona as being pretty evenly divided on the subject — 49 for legal abortion, 46 against — but it’s turned out that a lot of people who liked abortion bans in theory do not like them very much when they become reality. It’s a particularly important race for all of us, not just because it is in everyone’s best interest to keep a nut like Kari Lake the hell out of the US Senate, but because it could very well determine the balance of the legislative body for the next Congress.
“Arizona women should not have to live in a state where politicians make decisions that should be between a woman and her doctor,” Gov. Hobbs said in a statement. “While this repeal is essential for protecting women’s lives, it is just the beginning of our fight to protect reproductive healthcare in Arizona. I will continue to call on the legislature to pass the Arizona Right to Contraception Act and protect [in vitro fertilization] from ongoing attacks. And I encourage every Arizonan to make their voices heard this November when abortion rights will be on the ballot.”
The Post also quoted Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, as saying that the vote marks “a sad day” because the law “will now not be protecting the lives of unborn children or the well-being of mothers.”
Someone should probably tell her that it’s the mothers who decide to have abortions and they probably know what is best for their own well-being — though she’ll probably figure that one out in November.
Man, voting and elections matter. Hobbs barely beat that lunatic in 22, and this surely was impossible otherwise. AZ even indicted the giggle-gang of fake electors in the same state that spent like $6 million to the Cyber Ninjas to use black lights on ballots hunting for traces of Chinese bamboo in the Great Fraudit. The result? Biden was shorted a few votes. AZ is in danger of falling way behind Texas, SD and Florida for wackiest wingnutty states. (Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and a few others are hopeless thus left off the list).
Ta, Robyn. Somewhere between 37% and 50% of all first trimester pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion, better known as miscarriage. If these assholes want to bring their god into the conversation, they should take that up with Him. He's the Abortionist in Chief.