Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decision against an Arizona law restricting non-emergency abortions after 20 weeks. The law was designed to protect children in the womb who experience pain during a late-term abortion and to protect mothers from the dangers and psychological consequences of late-term abortions.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to review the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that held unconstitutional an Arizona law protecting the lives of babies 20 weeks and older, effectively striking down the law.
Arizona Speaker of the House Andy Tobin released a statement in which he said he was devastated. “I am very much saddened and grief-stricken that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the lawsuit over Arizona’s law limiting abortions after 20 weeks,” said Tobin. “Consequently, late term abortions will continue to be performed in Arizona.”
“More than 13,000 abortions were performed in Arizona in 2012. Over a thousand of these procedures occurred after 20 weeks, a time at which a growing number in the scientific community believe that a fetus can feel pain,” continued Tobin. “Moreover, the “viability standard” relied on in Roe vs. Wade is becoming more and more arbitrary and irrelevant as scientific research reveals ways to sustain the fetus during the second trimester of a pregnancy outside the womb. I hope the Supreme Court will one day soon take up the serious issues presented by this case.”
The law’s author, State Senator Kimberly Yee said, “By declining to take up the case of Horne v. Isaacson, the United States Supreme Court has put the health and safety of women and preborn children at risk. I sponsored the Mother’s Health and Safety Act because there is overwhelming evidence that abortion after 20 weeks puts women in harm’s way. What’s more, by this age, preborn children can feel pain, and it is simply inhumane to subject them to an abortion.”
“Because the High Court decided not to take up this case, they allowed for a dangerous and radical decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to stand that overturned this law,” continued Yee. “It is a fundamental responsibility of government to protect life.”
Yee vowed that the ruling “will not be the last word on this critical issue.”
Rep. Eric Meyer, D-Paradise Valley (District 28), released a statement saying that the law “promoted ideological extremism over women’s health. If the ban would have been allowed to stay in place, physicians in our state would not have been able to practice the standard of care as prescribed by experts. That would undermine women’s safety and would put their health at risk. In some cases, women would have to leave our state to receive appropriate care. Such delays in treatment could have catastrophic results. The news from the Supreme Court today is good for women’s health. We should trust women to make their own medical choices. Laws like the 20-week abortion ban would force women and families into terrible situations and would put the government in between women and their doctors.”
However, physician and Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar issued a statement after the ruling, “The spurious legacy of Roe continues unabated. This is more than a legal issue; it’s an issue of life or death for unborn babies. This law struck a balance that protected women who wanted to terminate their babies’ lives, while also keeping older babies from feeling the excruciating pain of death by abortion. As a father of three and a health care provider, I am appalled and dismayed that the Supreme Court of the United States is blocking Arizona’s ability to protect its children.”
Bryan Howard, President and CEO, Planned Parenthood Arizona, said “This is a significant victory for Arizona women. The Court did the right thing today, but this dangerous and unconstitutional law should never have passed in the legislature in the first place.”
Arizona’s limitation on abortions performed after 20 weeks was enacted by the Legislature in 2012. It was initially upheld by U.S. District Judge James Teilborg, who said that the Arizona Legislature had cited “substantial and well-documented evidence that an unborn child has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion by at least twenty weeks gestational age.”