Arizona governor signs 15-week abortion ban into law
By Gabriella Borter
(Reuters) – Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey on Wednesday signed a invoice banning abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant, a restriction the U.S. Supreme Courtroom might quickly declare to be constitutional when it finishes reviewing an identical Mississippi ban this spring.
The Arizona measure, handed by the Republican-led legislature final week, states that physicians can present abortions after 15 weeks solely in circumstances of medical emergency. There aren’t any exceptions for rape or incest.
Physicians who violate the legislation could also be prosecuted for a felony and will have their licenses revoked if convicted.
“In Arizona, we all know there may be immeasurable worth in each life – together with preborn life,” the governor wrote in a letter on Wednesday. “I imagine it’s every state’s accountability to guard them.”
Republican-led states are quickly passing anti-abortion laws this 12 months with the anticipation that the Supreme Courtroom will reinstate Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. The court docket, with a 6-3 conservative majority, expressed openness to Mississippi’s case throughout oral arguments in December.
The court docket’s determination might overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent, which established the appropriate to abortion earlier than the fetus is viable, and it might pave the way in which for states to efficiently cross stricter bans.
Florida and Kentucky legislatures additionally just lately handed 15-week bans that now await approval from these states’ governors.
Brittany Fonteno, president of Deliberate Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, has criticized the state’s invoice as “dangerous to pregnant individuals and their households” and mentioned it was a part of a longer-term effort to make abortion unlawful in Arizona.
“The continued assaults on reproductive rights and freedom have turn into commonplace and proceed with Governor Ducey’s signing of S.B. 1164 into legislation at present,” Fonteno mentioned in a press release on Wednesday.
New legal guidelines usually take impact 90 days after the legislature adjourns in Arizona, which might make this legislation efficient by late summer time if it isn’t efficiently challenged in court docket.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Modifying by Colleen Jenkins and Aurora Ellis)
