The White House on Saturday condemned “the potentially catastrophic, dangerous and unacceptable consequences” of a decision by an Arizona judge, which according to American media reactivates a ban on abortion dating back to the 19th century.
“If this decision is confirmed, health personnel will risk up to five years in prison if they fulfill their duty of care; survivors of rape and incest would be forced to bear the children of their attackers; and women [enceintes] with health problems would face terrible risks,” President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
A judge from Pima County in Arizona, a politically contested state playing a major role in the campaign for the November legislative elections, issued a decision on Friday that caused a lot of noise.
She considered that the very conservative Supreme Court, by blowing up the right to abortion at the end of June, which its case law had guaranteed since 1973 throughout the United States, had wiped the slate clean of all the texts relating to abortion since that date in Arizona.
This refers the state, according to several American media, to extremely restrictive texts dating from 1864 and 1901 – before American women obtained the right to vote and even before this western territory officially joined United States.
The Republican Governor of the state, Doug Ducey, considers that following the reversal of jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, a law recently passed to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy is necessary.
But this interpretation is considered too moderate by some followers of a harder line, who have therefore asked the state justice to decide.
Among them is Republican State Attorney General Mark Brnovich. The judge’s decision on Friday “clarifies and harmonizes [le droit] on this very important topic,” he tweeted.
Election battle
Several conservative American states have implemented, after the decision of the Supreme Court, total or partial bans on abortion.
The subject embarrasses the Republican camp, aware that tough positions on abortion cost it points in the polls and could compromise the chances of certain candidates.
The Democratic Party, led by President Joe Biden, hopes to mobilize voters to defend access to abortion at the polls, during the mid-term ballot which partially renews the Senate and completely the House of Representatives.
Arizona, this disputed state which has two Democratic senators but a Republican governor, who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election but – with a narrow margin – for Joe Biden in 2020, is emblematic of this electoral battle.
Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters, who opposes Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly, until recently compared abortion to “genocide”.
But this colt of former President Donald Trump, left behind in the polls, now only talks about bans for “very late abortions”.