Democrats Tee Up Abortion Until Birth After Arizona Court Decision

Democrats are teeing up a ballot measure in Arizona that would practically ensure abortion until the moment of birth, after the Arizona Supreme Court held that a new state law regulating abortion after 15 weeks did not repeal an 1864 law that allowed abortion only to save the life of the mother.

The Arizona Supreme Court wrestled with the issue of whether that law was now back in effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

As part of that analysis, the Arizona court was determining whether the 2022 law repealed and replaced the 1864 law.

The Arizona court sided with a county trial court, which held that it would be "Procedurally improper" to modify a 1973 injunction blocking the old law after Roe in order to "Harmonize laws not in existence when the was filed." Rather than a ruling on abortion rights, this new court decision was a ruling on judicial procedure.

Here, we consider a statute that was never repealed-in fact, it was recodified even after it was enjoined-followed by the enactment of a series of statutes regulating the same subject matter in the wake of Roe, the Supreme Court decision striking down the original statute.

The court of appeals misconstrued the legislature's express intent embodied in S.B. 1164 by holding that the statutory scheme demonstrates that the legislature enacted S.B. 1164 with the design "To restrict-but not to eliminate-elective abortions." Brnovich, 254 Ariz. at 406 16.

The legislature's unwavering and unqualified affirmative maintenance of a statutory ban on elective abortion since 1864, S.B. 1164's construction provision that the legislature did not intend to repeal 13-3603 in passing 36-2322, and 1-219(A)'s public policy pronouncement that the rights of the "Unborn child" were limited only by the federal Constitution and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it, effectively constitute a discernible comprehensive trigger provision in the event of Roe's demise. 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/11/abortion-arizona/