Arizona can enforce near-total abortion ban, judge rules - The Guardian

Arizona can enforce a near-total ban on abortions that has been blocked for nearly 50 years, a judge ruled Friday, meaning that clinics statewide will have to stop providing the procedures to avoid criminal charges against doctors and other medical workers.

The judge lifted a decades-old injunction that blocked enforcement of the law on the books since before Arizona became a state.

The ruling means the state’s abortions clinics will have to shut down and anyone seeking an abortion will have to go out of state.

A physician who runs a clinic providing abortions said she was dismayed but not surprised by the decision.

“It kind of goes with what I’ve been saying for a while now: it is the intent of the people who run this state that abortion be illegal here,” said Dr DeShawn Taylor.

Bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy were in place in 12 Republican-led states; in Wisconsin, clinics have stopped providing abortions amid litigation over whether an 1849 ban is in effect.