A federal judge is blocking a 2021 Arizona “personhood” law that gives all legal rights to unborn fetuses.
Abortion providers were worried the law can lead to criminal charges like assault or child abuse and allege it is unconstitutionally vague. Judge Douglas Rayes on Monday said that is exactly the case, since the law could invite a host of criminal or civil charges but there's no way to know which ones.
A lawyer for the Arizona attorney general’s office told Rayes at a June 8 hearing that the law does not create new crimes.
All abortions in Arizona stopped last month after the U.S. Supreme Court said people do not have a constitutional right to abortion.
Meanwhile, a judge in Utah is deciding whether to allow the state’s trigger-law ban on abortion to go into effect, and a Minnesota judge has declared most of the state’s restrictions on abortion unconstitutional.
The moves Monday come as the implications of the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade are being sorted out nationwide.
In Michigan, an pro-choice campaign turned in a record-breaking number of signatures in an attempt to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
A similar effort in Arizona to protect abortion rights in the state constitution last week failed to gather enough signatures to put the measure on the November ballot.