The Civil War raged and fortune-seekers hunted for gold. This era produced Arizona's abortion ban
The near-total abortion ban resurrected last week by the Arizona Supreme Court dates to 1864, a time when gold-seekers were moving, white settlers were clashing with Native Americans and dueling had to be regulated
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Union and Confederate armies clashed in a bloody fourth year of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln tasked one man to create the legal code for Arizona, almost 50 years before the territory became a state.
That was 160 years ago. Last week, that same 1864 provision was resurrected by the Arizona Supreme Court, which upheld the near-total ban on abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest, a decision that quickly rippled across the political landscape of one of the nation's most important presidential battleground states.
This law's revival is just the latest instance of long-dormant restrictions influencing current abortion policies after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which once granted a federal right to abortion.
