Doctors who perform abortions up to the 15th week of pregnancy cannot be prosecuted under an 1864 state law that mandates prison time for people who assists a woman seeking the procedure because subsequent passed laws made that law moot, an Arizona appeals court ruled Friday, Politico reports.
Although it did not explicitly overturn the 1864 law that dictated at least a two-year prison term, the court ruled that various state laws passed since 1864 allow doctors to perform abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy and reviewing that one law in isolation negates the legislation subsequently passed.
“The statutes, read together, make clear that physicians are permitted to perform abortions as regulated” by other abortion laws, the appeals court wrote, noting that the state’s Republican attorney general interpretation’s of the pre-statehood law “would not merely invite arbitrary enforcement, it would practically demand it” because prosecutors could decide themselves which law would apply instead of referring to the latest laws passed by the legislature which overrule previous legislation.