Arizona GOP scuttles attempt to repeal 1864 abortion ban

Arizona Republicans on Wednesday blocked a vote to repeal an 1864 abortion ban that the state Supreme Court revived last week, bucking former President Donald Trump’s pleas to nix the law and siding with the state’s influential anti-abortion lobby.

The GOP-controlled House’s decision serves not only as a rebuke to Trump but also to Senate hopeful Kari Lake, who had personally called Republican lawmakers urging them to repeal the 19th-century ban after the high court’s ruling last week. Both Trump and Lake have sensed electoral danger in the court’s decision as Republicans have struggled with how to talk about — and set policy on — abortion in the post-Roe era.

The status quo threatens to leave unresolved an issue that Trump had hoped to put behind him last week when he said that it is now up to the states and voters to set abortion policy. When the Arizona high court ruled the following day on the 1864 law, which has no exceptions for rape or incest, Trump quickly said the ruling went too far and that state lawmakers would rewrite the law.

“I think it’ll be straightened out and, as you know, it’s all about state’s rights and it will be straightened out,” Trump said last week. “And I’m sure the governor and everybody else have got to bring it back into reason and that it will be taken care of I think.”

But the last week has shown how difficult that can be even with Trump’s prodding.

The moves by state House Republicans, who twice rejected efforts to bring a repeal forward, highlights the deepening divide between the more socially conservative wing of the party, which opposes abortion on moral grounds, and the more populist, MAGA branch, including Trump and Lake, that is seeking a more politically pragmatic approach.

“Abortion is a very complicated topic. It is ethically, morally complex,” Republican House Speaker Ben Toma said Wednesday on the floor. “I understand that we have deeply held beliefs, and I would ask everyone in this chamber to respect the fact that some of us believe that abortion is in fact the murder of children.”

It also is likely to fuel efforts by abortion-rights groups to pass a ballot measure in November protecting the right to abortion until fetal viability in the state constitution.

Shortly after the House vote, two Republicans in the state Senate — Shawnna Bolick and T.J. Shope — voted with Democrats to allow the introduction of a Senate bill similar to the legislation the House declined to vote on Wednesday. However, even if Bolick and Shope continue to stand with Democrats and pass the Senate version, the proposal’s future remains dim in the House.

Republican divisions over a path forward on abortion policy in the post-Roe era are not unique to Arizona. GOP legislative leaders in Indiana, South Carolina and West Virginia similarly grappled with crafting policies that would appeal to enough members of their caucus to pass, but none of those debates have happened in a state so critical to the 2024 election.

The Senate can now advance its repeal proposal, and Democrats in the House are likely to continue trying to persuade another Republican to join them before they reconvene next week. But if Republicans can’t reach a consensus, they risk ceding the issue to Democrats who have spent the last week reminding people that Arizona’s abortion law predates not only its statehood but a woman’s right to vote and the legal end to slavery.

“This is what we are arguing about right now whether or not we should overturn something that is archaic, something that is going to really impact women in Arizona,” said state Rep. Alma Hernandez, a Democrat, on the floor.

Prior to the House vote, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs spoke with a few Republicans about repealing the 1864 law and indicated she would sign legislation doing so, according to a source familiar with negotiations between the governor’s office and Republican lawmakers, who was granted anonymity to speak about private discussions.

Ultimately only one House Republican, state Rep. Matt Gress, joined Democrats in supporting their repeal efforts. Democrats needed two House Republicans to side with them to move a vote forward and repeal the ban.

“Republican extremists in the House have yet again failed to do the right thing. In just one week living under this new reality, women, doctors, and healthcare providers have already begun to feel the devastating effects of living under a total abortion ban,” Hobbs said in a statement Wednesday. “We cannot go on like this.”

Some House Republicans who in recent days voiced openness to supporting a repeal of the law, including state Rep. David Cook, voted against suspending the rules that would have allowed them to do so.

But anti-abortion groups, including the Center for Arizona Policy, lobbied hard against the measure. Still, the group’s president, Cathi Herrod, said in a text prior to the vote that it was “not clear how things will go.”

Republican lawmakers have also floated pushing for a ballot measure on abortion that would punt the question directly to voters. Three options were presented to lawmakers in a slideshow shown during a legislative caucus meeting on Monday: protecting the legislature’s ability to set abortion policy without setting a limit on the number of weeks; prohibiting abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy; or banning it after roughly six-weeks gestation.

Linley Wilson, general counsel for the Arizona House, wrote in the presentation that the strategy not only “changes the narrative” on abortion by allowing Republicans to insist that they “have a plan,” but that any ballot measure could draw votes away from the other effort by abortion-rights proponents.