Arizona Supreme Court rules to uphold 1864 near total abortion ban

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Bad news for the women of Arizona. Excellent news for Biden.

Yeah l don't want to celebrate too hard because this ruling is a disaster, but it also should help Biden's chances and D trifecta chances, which raises the chances of codifying Roe and abolishing these laws nationwide, which will be good in every state.

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Republicans control both houses of the Arizona legislature, so I'm skeptical that they can just easily restore the status quo (15 week ban) in a quick special session.

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Republicans control both houses of the Arizona legislature, so I'm skeptical that they can just easily restore the status quo (15 week ban) in a quick special session.

I read (can't find the source) that they have the votes to do it, so long as the Democrats go along with it. The only way this gets forestalled is if the Dems block a repeal because they think this is good electorally for them. But of course that also carries a risk of backlash.

The smartest thing to do is just repeal the 1864 law. Repubs will tell their base that the 1864 law is out of step with the modern era and that the 15 week law is far more palatable today. There isn't a large evangelical population in AZ so the backlash from pro-lifers won't be as severe as some other places.

Dems, OTOH, can run on the fact that this even had to happen and if it weren't for them, this law wouldn't have been overturned so quickly. Try and keep it on the mind of voters and hope they don't forget by November (Americans have notoriously short memories).

We'll see. Do both party leaders support going back to the 15 week status quo? If so, the margins are narrow enough that the votes are probably there. Does Arizona have stalling tactics? I could see most of the Republicans in most houses doing everything they can to derail this, up to and including removing the leaders from their posts. I would also expect some of the "moderate" Republicans trying to "compromise" with repealing the 1864 law and replacing it with a 6- or 8-week ban.

But if the votes are there to go back to 15, I don't think there's any chance that Democrats block this and let Arizona go without any abortions for the next 6 months. That would be a complete betrayal of the women of the state and honestly would be a recallable offense from Hobbs.

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If a hard-core pro-life Republican is going to grandstand and risk Trump's electoral chances in the state, they will be punished, mark my words.

People who truly believe that abortion is literally murder aren't going to let threats of "punishment" stop them.

Think about it - if you lived in Germany in the 1940s and could single-handedly stop the Holocaust, and Hitler was like "you better not! I'll punish you!!" would you do it? The religious right sees abortion is equivalent to, or worse than the Holocaust.

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How long before Ben Toma is in Trump's crosshairs? I've said many times Trump isn't gonna cede a critical battleground state, and if he sees these as an electoral obstacle, he will fight tooth and nail to get rid of it. And god be damned to anyone that gets in his way.

I don't think you are grasping how anti-abortion people think about this issue. Ben Toma literally thinks the Holocaust just ended and it's up to him not to restart it. He won't care if Trump insults him for it.

If Arizonans want legal abortion, they will have to vote in Democratic governors, legislators, and judges forever. There's no more Roe safety net. Any time Republicans take power in most states, abortion is going to become illegal, because to them it's literally a life and death issue and they don't care about the long term electoral consequences.

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Dems are giving away the store here and basically bailing out the GOP. The constitutional initiative was guaranteed to pass and the unenforced ban was going to be a great motivator for Dems. But of course they were fine completely taking it off the table.

Real life is not a game.

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Good news. I just hope voters in Arizona realize that they no longer have the Roe crutch and have to vote for pro-choice candidates every single election from now on if they don't want this reversed.

There are 15 examples out there of what can happen when they don't.

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So what has changed in the past few weeks causing the ban repeal to pass? Back then, there was a House speak dead-set against repealing it and religious nuts praying on the Senate floor.

Trump agreed with the repeal and Republicans just followed their master's voice.

This is a tragedy, but let's also understand that it was two Republicans in the Senate and three in the House.  It's not like the majority of the party voted for the repeal.

Exactly. Republicans are just a couple of seats away from bringing it back in 2026, so this is going to be a top issue in Arizona politics going forward.