Obstetrician appeals decision over Arizona abortion law

PHOENIX – The medical director of anti-abortion being pregnant facilities in metro Phoenix has requested the Arizona Supreme Court docket to overview a decrease court docket’s resolution that concluded abortion docs couldn’t be prosecuted below a pre-statehood regulation that bans the process in almost all circumstances.

In an enchantment filed on March 1, Dr. Eric Hazelrigg seeks to reverse an Arizona Court docket of Appeals ruling that stated docs couldn’t be charged for performing abortions within the first 15 weeks of being pregnant as a result of different Arizona legal guidelines handed through the years permit them to carry out the process.

Abortions are at present allowed in Arizona within the first 15 weeks of being pregnant below a 2022 regulation.

The 1864 regulation that Hazelrigg is difficult imposes a near-total ban on abortions, offering no exceptions for rape or incest and permitting abortions provided that a mom’s life is in peril.

In late December, the Arizona Court docket of Appeals stated it wasn’t viewing the pre-statehood regulation in isolation of different statutes and concluded the state’s legal guidelines make it clear docs are permitted to carry out abortions.

It stated the 1864 regulation can coexist with the regulation that enables the process by the fifteenth week of being pregnant. Non-doctors would nonetheless be topic to prosecution below the previous regulation, the appeals court docket stated.

A court docket blocked enforcement of the regulation shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court docket issued the 1973 Roe v. Wade resolution guaranteeing a constitutional proper to an abortion.

After the Supreme Court docket overturned the landmark resolution in June, then-Republican Lawyer Basic Mark Brnovich succeeded in getting a state decide in Tucson to raise a court docket order blocking its enforcement.

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In Hazelrigg’s enchantment, legal professionals for the obstetrician stated the court docket incorrectly concluded that the regulation doesn’t apply to docs. They argued Arizona’s legal guidelines don’t expressly permit abortion however fairly forbid it. They’re asking the state Supreme Court docket to raise the injunction that blocks enforcement of the pre-statehood regulation.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy group defending Hazelrigg, stated the appeals court docket rewrote the regulation and did “with a pen what abortion proponents couldn’t do with a vote.”

Brittany Fonteno, president and chief government officer of Deliberate Parenthood Arizona, characterised Hazelrigg’s enchantment as a last-ditch effort.

“In December 2022, the Arizona Court docket of Appeals accurately harmonized the entire state legislature’s legal guidelines, and below that interpretation, abortion has been and continues to stay authorized in Arizona,” Fonteno stated. “As now we have stated time and time once more, this archaic abortion ban the intervener (Hazelrigg) is making an attempt to revive is merciless, dangerous, and unpopular with nearly all of Arizonans.”

Abortion suppliers in Arizona halted all care within the state after Roe was struck down, restarted in mid-July after a “personhood” regulation giving authorized rights to unborn kids was blocked by a court docket, and stopped them once more when the Tucson decide lifted an injunction on the 1864 regulation. Deliberate Parenthood restarted abortion care throughout the state once more after Brnovich’s workplace agreed in one other abortion lawsuit to not implement the previous regulation till litigation is resolved.

Democratic Lawyer Basic Kris Mayes, who succeeded Brnovich, didn’t enchantment the appeals court docket resolution.

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