XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.abortion, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: zinn@reno.us   
      
   A 15-week abortion ban passed this year will take effect on Saturday. But   
   the attorney general has argued that the near-total ban from the 19th   
   century should take precedence.   
      
   A judge on Friday ruled that a near-total abortion ban written before   
   Arizona became a state must be enforced, throwing abortion access into   
   question one day before the start of a 15-week ban that passed the   
   Legislature this year.   
      
   The stricter ban, which can be traced to 1864, was blocked by a court   
   injunction in 1973 shortly after the Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade,   
   determined that there was a constitutional right to abortion.   
      
   On Friday, Judge Kellie Johnson of Pima County Superior Court lifted that   
   injunction, noting that Roe had been overruled in June and that Planned   
   Parenthood’s request for the court to “harmonize the laws” in Arizona was   
   flawed.   
      
   “The court finds that because the legal basis for the judgment entered in   
   1973 has now been overruled, it must vacate the judgment in its entirety,”   
   she wrote. “The court finds an attempt to reconcile 50 years of   
   legislative activity procedurally improper.”   
      
   Planned Parenthood Arizona had argued that the conflicting laws should be   
   harmonized so licensed physicians could continue providing abortions under   
   the new regulation, with the much earlier law applying to others   
   performing the procedure.   
      
   Even though abortion remained legal in Arizona after the Supreme Court’s   
   decision this year, it has been all but unavailable, as doctors and   
   abortion clinics have tried to sort out confusion about which law would   
   ultimately take effect. Even politicians disagreed on the relationship   
   between the laws, which each provide exceptions only in the case of a   
   medical emergency.   
      
   Gov. Doug Ducey has said that the 15-week ban he signed in March would   
   supersede the century-old ban, but Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a   
   fellow Republican, has argued that the older ban should take precedence.   
   Mr. Brnovich filed the motion to vacate the decades-old injunction.   
      
   “We applaud the court for upholding the will of the Legislature and   
   providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue,” Mr. Brnovich   
   said in a statement after the ruling. “I have and will continue to protect   
   the most vulnerable Arizonans.”   
      
   Abortion rights supporters were critical of the judge’s decision.   
      
   “Today’s ruling by the Pima County Superior Court has the practical and   
   deplorable result of sending Arizonans back nearly 150 years,” Brittany   
   Fonteno, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Arizona,   
   said in a statement. “No archaic law should dictate our reproductive   
   freedom and how we live our lives today.”   
      
   The 1864 law, codified by the state’s territorial legislature, mandates a   
   two- to five-year prison sentence for anyone who helps a woman obtain an   
   abortion.   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/us/arizona-abortion-ban.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)