The Arizona House of Representatives voted to repeal an 1864 law outlawing abortion in the state on Wednesday.
Three Republican lawmakers house Democrats in backing the effort to quash the 160-year-old law.
Wednesday’s 32-28 vote marked the third attempt in three weeks by the GOP-controlled state House to repeal the long-dormant law, which the state Supreme Court ordered Arizona to enforce earlier this month in light of the Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade.
The repeal effort now heads to the state Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans, and could take up a repeal vote as early as next Wednesday.
Arizona Democrats pilloried the near total abortion ban law as “archaic and cruel.”
Most Republican state House lawmakers, however, were against repealing the law, which allows for the prosecution of doctors who perform abortions illegally and has no exceptions for rape or incest.
“I’m proud of my caucus for having fought this off for as long as we have,” Republican House Speaker Pro Tem Travis Grantham said, according to the Arizona Mirror. “I hope people are happy now.”
“Stop calling it archaic to ban abortions. It’s archaic to do abortions,” Republican Rep. Barbara Parker, argued on the House floor.
Former President Donald Trump criticized the state Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month, arguing that the judges went “too far” and predicting that it would get “straightened out … very quickly.”
Scottsdale Rep. Alexander Kolodin denounced his fellow Republicans who have claimed that failing to repeal the Civil War-era law would result in GOP losses in November.
“We’re willing to kill infants to win an election. Put in that context, it’s a little harder to stomach” he said. “Politics is important, but it’s not worth our souls.”
If the repeal effort succeeds in the state Senate, it will head to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk for her signature. Hobbs is opposed to the 1864 law.
The centuries-old law is set to go into effect on June 8, and it would supersede the state’s current 15-week abortion ban.
