On Friday a judge ruled that a 1901 ban on nearly all abortions in Arizona could be enforced.
Arizona’s recent ruling on abortion is “dangerous” and will set women in the state “back more than a century — to a time before Arizona was even a state,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Saturday morning.
Jean-Pierre’s comments came a day after a judge lifted a decades-old injunction blocking the enforcement of a 1901 Arizona law that bans nearly all abortions. The only exemption to that pre-statehood ban is when the mother’s life is at risk.
On Friday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson granted a request by the state’s attorney general, Mark Brnovic, to lift an injunction that was put in place after the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide.
Brnovic asked the court to lift the near-50-year-old injunction in July, shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
Johnson’s ruling — which takes effect immediately, but is expected to be appealed — means that abortion clinics in the state will have to close their doors.
