How new rulings restrict abortion access

Courts in Arizona and Florida have moved to further restrict reproductive rights in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide.

Arizona’s top court on April 9 revived a ban on nearly all abortions under a state law dating to 1864, some 48 years before it gained statehood. Florida's top court on April 1 cleared the way for a Republican-backed law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, down from 15 weeks, to take effect in May.

The two rulings put the two states in the “most restrictive” category for abortion access and policies, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that advocates for reproductive rights and tracks abortion access.

Arizona’s near-total ban means that any woman who wants to end a pregnancy must leave the state to do so unless her life is determined to be at risk. Florida’s law means that women after six weeks of pregnancy - before many know they are pregnant - would need to leave the state to do so. Both rulings could lead to the closure of clinics that provide abortions in the two states.

The Nov. 5 U.S. elections could change the state of play in the two states. Florida’s top court has approved a ballot measure that will ask voters whether to amend the state constitution to bar laws that “prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion” before fetal viability “or when necessary to protect the patient's health.” In Arizona, abortion rights advocates have said they gathered enough signatures to create a ballot measure that will ask voters whether to amend the state constitution to prohibit any “law, regulation, policy or practice” interfering with abortions before fetal viability or later if needed to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.”