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Arizona House Votes to Repeal Civil War-Era Abortion Law

A pair of Republican lawmakers from the Phoenix area, and another from a rural part of the state, joined Democrats to vote to repeal the 19th century bill.

Arizona’s House of Representatives voted Wednesday to repeal a Civil War-era abortion ban that was recently upheld by the state Supreme Court, ushering in a near-total prohibition on the procedures. The decision was a blow for the state’s conservative Republicans, who equated abortion to slavery and murder in arguing lawmakers should leave the legislation—that was penned before Arizona was even a state—untouched. With Republicans holding a slight majority in the Arizona House, a vote along party lines would have doomed the repeal. However, three Republicans—two from the metro Phoenix area, and another from a rural farming region—broke with their party to join Democrats in repealing the ban, which had a final vote of 32 to 28. Now, the repeal vote must also pass the Arizona Senate—where Republicans also hold a slight majority—if the legislature is to put an end to the 1864 law. Should Democrats fail, undergoing—or assisting someone undergoing—an abortion procedure will become a felony punishable by two to five years in prison.