The White House condemned, on Saturday September 24, “the potentially catastrophic, dangerous and unacceptable consequences” of an Arizona judge’s decision on abortion. “If this decision is confirmed, health workers will face up to five years in prison if they fulfill their duty of care; survivors of rape and incest would be forced to bear the children of their attackers; and (pregnant) women with health problems would face terrible risks”assured the spokesperson for President Joe Biden, Karine Jean-Pierre, in a press release.
A judge from Pima County in Arizona, a politically contested state playing a major role in the campaign for the November legislative elections, issued a decision on Friday that caused a lot of noise. She considered that the very conservative Supreme Court, by blowing up the right to abortion at the end of June, which its case law had guaranteed since 1973 throughout the United States, had wiped the slate clean of all the texts relating to abortion since that date in Arizona.
Laws dating from 1864 and 1901
This refers the state, according to several American media, to extremely restrictive texts dating from 1864 and 1901 – before American women obtained the right to vote and even before this western territory officially joined. United States.
The Republican governor of the state Doug Ducey considers that following the reversal of jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, a law recently adopted to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy is essential. But this interpretation is considered too moderate by some followers of a harder line, who have therefore asked the state justice to decide. Among them is Republican State Attorney General Mark Brnovich. The decision rendered Friday by the judge “clarifies and harmonizes (the law) on this very important subject”he commented on Twitter.