An Arizona Supreme Court decision on Tuesday that could end virtually all abortions in the state puts the issue front and center in a 2024 battleground that will play a crucial role in deciding the next president and the Senate majority.
Democrats immediately pounced on the ruling, which will allow a law first passed in 1864 to go into effect. It permits doctors or others to be prosecuted for performing an abortion at any time unless the mother’s life is in danger and does not include exceptions for rape or incest. Democrats blamed former President Donald Trump for the loss of abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court, reshaped by his three appointments, ended a federally guaranteed right to abortion and allowed for the enforcement of state laws like Arizona’s.
“Today’s decision to reimpose a law from a time when Arizona wasn’t a state, the Civil War was raging, and women couldn’t even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state,” Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. She pledged that prosecutors in her office would not enforce it.
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