On Tuesday, Arizona’s highest court ruled to maintain an 1864 law that effectively bans all abortions in the state.
The court, comprised of all Republican appointed justices said in the 4-2 decision, “Physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal.”
Democrats have condemned the ruling calling it a “stain” on Arizona that would put women’s lives at risk.
One Republican Justice, Bill Montgomery, recused himself from the case after a publicized Facebook post in which he stated that Planned Parenthood had participated in “the greatest generational genocide known to man.”
But according to some abortion rights organizers in the Valley, “it will be the voters in Arizona and across the nation who will have the last word on women’s health and women’s choice.”
President Biden called the ban “cruel,” and said that it was a result of “the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom.”
“Millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest,” he said in a statement.
Trump has bragged on the record about being the one to place the Supreme Court Justices in place to overturn Roe v Wade and Trump reportedly continued to talk on social media posts and interviews that he was the only one who could do it, with “nobody else even coming close,” but now finds himself in what’s being reported as a “political earthquake,”—the most extreme ruling so far to come down in Arizona significantly raises the stakes for political races not only in Arizona but across the nation.
Pro-choice Arizona activists are well aware of that fact and are committed to “never stopping the fight.”
Arizona pro-choice activists are equally intent on getting the message out—the one claiming responsibility for Roe and from Trump’s own mouth—to the voters in Arizona and across the nation who are largely pro-choice.
“Trump ushered in the ability to make many of archaic even criminalized abortion laws stick that were previously on state books but never enforced,” says Arizona abortion access activist Tammy Boyd.
“What we saw on Tuesday is Republican extremism in full view—the state’s highest court has now shown its compliance with an agenda set on restricting the rights of women and placing them in harm’s way.”
“We are committed to fight and we will tell the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump and all GOP candidates who try to eliminate our rights even further—that they will hear from us at the ballot box.”
At several locations across the Valley, voters have been signing petitions to support abortion rights by placing it on the ballot in November.
“I’m really tired of being embarrassed to live in this state because of these insane Republican measures that are designed to interfere with my right to make my own decisions about healthcare and reproductive choices,” said Shanaine Osman, a Tempe insurance administrator who says she’s also a concerned mother of two young children.
In a recent University of Arizona study political science professor Samara Klar found in that nearly half of Arizona voters believe abortion should be between a woman and her doctor.
