Swing state's anti-abortion laws smacked down in court

A Maricopa County Superior Court has permanently blocked multiple anti-abortion laws, ruling that they violate the constitutional right to the procedure voters adopted two years ago.

In 2024, an overwhelming majority of Arizona voters agreed to add abortion to the state constitution, throwing dozens of existing restrictions into question. In May of last year, two local abortion providers and the Arizona Medical Association challenged a series of those restrictions and asked a judge to permanently enjoin them.

Attorneys for the doctors argued that the laws — barring women from terminating a pregnancy because of a fetus’ genetic abnormality; prohibiting the use of telemedicine during medication abortions; and requiring an ultrasound, the recitation of state-mandated information and a 24-hour delay before performing an abortion — are unconstitutional because they conflict with the state’s new protections.

Arizona’s abortion rights amendment explicitly forbids the state from enforcing any policy that interferes with access to the procedure before fetal viability. The only exception is when a “compelling state interest” exists to justify such a policy. But that interest is narrowly defined as one that either improves or maintains a woman’s health, doesn’t infringe on her “autonomous decision-making” ability, is based on evidence-based medicine and is achieved through in the least restrictive manner possible.

Attorneys for Republican legislative leaders, who took up defense of the restrictions when Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes refused to, argued that the laws should be considered constitutional and preserved because they may help women who need more time or information.

But that failed to convince Judge Gregory Como, who concluded that the restrictions fall afoul of the multi-pronged legal test that voters agreed to add to Arizona’s Constitution.

“Each of these laws apply across the board regardless of whether they ‘improve or maintain the health’ of a woman seeking an abortion,” he wrote. “Each of these laws infringe on a woman’s ‘autonomous decision making’ by mandating medical procedures and disclosure of information regardless of a patient’s needs and wishes. In sum it is the Challenged Laws’ universal suppression of medical judgement and choice that renders them invalid in all circumstances.”

The two abortion providers who launched the legal challenge and spent days testifying that the laws negatively impact their ability to provide care celebrated the decision.

“This is a relief. For the first time in a long time, my patients will not have to jump through hoops to get the care they need,” said Dr. Paul Isaacson, in a written statement announcing the win. “I became an OB-GYN to provide compassionate care to my patients, but these restrictions have stood in the way of that.”

“The court made clear today that the power to make health care decisions should be in patients’ hands, not politicians’,” added Dr. William Richardson.

And Mayes celebrated the ruling, calling it a “major victory for Arizona women, families, and their doctors.”

“The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: the abortion restrictions challenged in this case are unconstitutional,” she said in a written statement. “This ruling affirms that Arizona women have a constitutional right to access the reproductive healthcare they need without unnecessary government interference and that doctors must be allowed to provide care based on their medical judgment, not on the beliefs of anti-abortion politicians.”

Como’s ruling won’t be the final word on the matter. Kim Quintero, a spokeswoman for Arizona state Senate President Warren Petersen, said it will be appealed.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected].