Arizona Senate Repeals 1864 Abortion Ban

Legislators in Arizona's upper house voted to repeal an 1864 law banning abortion, a month after the state's supreme court said the Civil War-era rule was valid.

The turnaround was the latest development in the fraught US abortion debate, which is expected to play a huge role in this year's presidential election, a likely rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

"I'm glad to see the Senate answered my call and voted to repeal the 1864 total abortion ban," the state's Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs wrote on social media.

"While this is essential to protecting women's health, it is just the beginning. I will never stop fighting for women's reproductive freedoms."

The western state jumped headlong into the divisive abortion rights debate last month when its supreme court ruled a hitherto obscure 160-year-old law was enforceable.

That law, which was drafted long before Arizona became a state and before women had the right to vote, made it a criminal offense for anyone to carry out an abortion, and allowed for prison sentences of up to five years for anyone convicted.

It made no exceptions for rape or incest.

The court ruled that because the state had never legislated for the right to abortion, its practice of allowing terminations up to the 15-week mark had been underpinned only by the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling by the US Supreme Court that had guaranteed reproductive freedoms across the country.

When the conservative-dominated court overturned that half-century-old ruling in 2022, Arizona had to revert to its original statutes, the state's court ruled.

Republican Party leaders nationally had called on the state to moderate the ban, with Trump insisting it had gone "too far."

That was repeated in the senate when two of them abandoned their conservative colleagues to give the motion a 16-14 majority.