By Bob Christie
Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Legislature on Thursday joined a growing list of Republican-led states that have passed laws broadly restricting abortion, while the conservative-majority Supreme Court is considering curtailing abortion rights, which It has been in place for nearly 50 years.
The state House of Representatives voted to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy in a vote split along party lines, copying a Mississippi law now being considered by the nation's highest court.
The bill explicitly says it does not overturn a state law in place for more than 100 years that would ban abortion entirely if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v.
Wade, the 1973 case that enshrined the right to abortion as the law of the nation.
[Idaho Governor Signs Law Banning Abortion Right After Sixth Week of Pregnancy]
The bill will now be sent to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey
, an abortion-rights opponent who has signed every anti-voluntary termination of pregnancy bill that has landed on his desk since he took office in 2015.
Activists protest in front of the Arizona Capitol against the law that prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, in Phoenix, on April 26, 2021. Ross D. Franklin / AP
A wave of anti-abortion laws across the country
The Arizona Legislature's decision comes at a time when Republican-led states have launched a crackdown on reproductive health rights.
Florida lawmakers approved a similar ban on abortion after 15 weeks earlier this month, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign soon.
At the same time, a bill in West Virginia failed to pass the state Senate before its legislative session ended earlier this month, but has already been voted in favor of the state House.
[Texas abortions fell 60% in the first month under the restrictive new law]
Another proposal in Arizona that would ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy has failed to advance.
While a bill enacted in Texas last year allows private citizens to sue clinics and doctors who break the law.
The Supreme Court refused to block this measure while it is reviewed in lower courts.
Idaho's governor also signed a similar bill this week.
Those measures are unique in that they allow private citizens to file civil lawsuits against anyone who helps someone else get an abortion after six weeks.
Which has made legal challenges difficult because the government is not involved in law enforcement.
This is expected in the next hearings for the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
March 21, 202200:35
Arizona's 15-week abortion ban bill
contains no exceptions for rape or incest or for a medical emergency
.
It would also ban abortions for families who learn during pregnancy that a fetus is not viable.
The measure was pushed by the Arizona Center for Policy, a leading conservative group that pushes religious freedom, anti-abortion and parental rights bills that wield great power among Republican lawmakers.
Democrats criticized what they called Republican lawmakers' disconnect between opposing abortion and refusing to provide more funding for the poor and uninsured.
Rep. Lorenzo Sierra,
a Catholic from Cashion, said he was strongly in favor of abortion rights
, calling the political and religiously motivated abortion ban “dangerous for the women in our lives.”
“I wish we had the same fervor for life that we have for issues like this.
That we would offer loving dignity, education, shelter, food,” Sierra said.
"Instead, we're doing this, and we're getting between a woman, her doctor, and her God of hers," she added.