Arizona’s latest abortion ban takes the state back to the Civil War era

Arizona’s latest abortion laws has made the state one in all the strictest in the country when it comes to reproductive rights. Critics point to the law’s origins in 1864, highlighting its troubling racial history.

In April this 12 months, Arizona lawmakers voted to keep an abortion law originally passed in 1864. Its restoration comes after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. According to Vox, the recent ruling almost leaves The reproductive autonomy of 1.6 million people is in danger.

The law states that anyone who “performs, supplies and administers” an abortion procedure or drugs to induce it faces two to five years in prison. The law only provides an exception for pregnant women who die without being pregnant. However, the laws stemmed from the anti-abortion movement that began in the mid-Nineteenth century. This effort was intended to limit white women’s desires outside the home as more women participated in the women’s suffrage movement.

In reality, anti-abortion efforts were intended solely to be sure that white women lived up to their responsibilities to uphold conservative American values. Doctors – a occupation then largely made up of white men – also benefited from the laws, making a monopoly on who could perform the procedure.

Although the original views on abortion up to that point were less religiously based, doctors and clergy later joined forces to demonize abortion, under the leadership of Harvard physician Horatio Storer. This later change led to imprisonment and heavy fines for those defying the regulations.

But today’s version of the law particularly affects minorities, a lot of whom have less freedom and resources. According to US Census data, black people makeup over 5.5% of Arizona’s population. Historical and racially motivated abortion protections have been designed to profit white people, leaving people of color in the most vulnerable position. The topic of hot buttons can be prevalent for Black women as the presidential election approaches.

Although the ban is scheduled to go into effect on April 24, Democratic lawmakers are calling for its repeal. Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said she wouldn’t implement the ruling. Regardless, residents still worry about their reproductive freedom.