An Arizona judge lifted a 50-year-old injunction on a Civil War-era state law that had been in place since before Arizona was a state that puts a near-total ban on abortion in the state, KPNX NBC-12 in Phoenix reports.
The only exception to the law is if the life of the pregnant patient is in immediate danger, meaning that patients seeking an abortion for any other cause will be forced to travel out of the state.
The 1864 Howell Code dictates a 2- to 5-year prison sentence for any person who “shall administer or cause to be administered or taken, any medicinal substances, or shall use or cause to be used any instruments whatever, with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child, and shall be thereof duly convicted[.]”