Well, no one thought that Planned Parenthood would allow their cash cow to dry up in Arizona, did they? And all they had to do was get an appeals court panel to agree with them.

As our readers will recall, Arizona had an abortion ban law from 1901 that was still on the books in the state. The law was suspended under Roe v. Wade, but never repealed. Arizona then passed a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks, modeled after the Mississippi law. That law, of course, was challenged and ended up in front of the Supreme Court as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and the court overturned Roe v. Wade. This led the Arizona Attorney General, Mark Brnovich, to go before a judge to rule as to whether the 1901 law was still active. And Judge Kellie Johnson agreed, pointing out that clarifying the multiple abortion laws in Arizona was not her job. She only determined that the 1901 abortion ban was still the law in Arizona, and so she lifted the previous court injunction.

That, of course, would not satisfy the abortion providers in Arizona, and so Planned Parenthood appealed the decision. And for now, they are rejoicing that they can kill babies for a little while longer in the state.

The three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals agreed with Planned Parenthood that a judge should not have lifted the decades-old order that prevented the older law from being imposed.”

The brief order written by Presiding Judge Peter J. Eckerstrom said Planned Parenthood and its Arizona affiliate had shown they are likely to prevail on an appeal of a decision by the judge in Tucson to allow enforcement of the old law.”

Planned Parenthood had argued that the lower court judge should have considered a host of laws restricting abortions passed since the original injunction was put in place following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that said women have a constitutional right to an abortion.”

Those laws include a new one blocking abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy that took effect last month. The previous limit was 24 weeks, the viability standard established by now-overruled U.S. Supreme Court cases.”

Oh wow, look at that. It turns out that the 15 week ban that Democrats and Planned Parenthood (but I repeat myself) screamed about when it was first passed last March is now what they are BEGGING a court to bring back. Funny, that.

“Today’s decision provides a desperately needed sense of security for both our patients and providers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. “We can now breathe a sigh of relief and serve patients. While the fight isn’t over, for now, Arizonans will once again be able to make their own decisions about their bodies, health care decisions, and futures.”

Brnovich spokeswoman Brittni Thomason said in a statement that “our office understands this is an emotional issue, and we will carefully review the court’s ruling before determining the next step.”

So, what happens next? The appeals court is sending the case back down to the lower court, in order to “consider” the laws that have been passed in the state since the 1901 ban. In other words, the appeals court wants Judge Kellie Johnson to do what she explicitly said in her previous ruling that she would not do, which is legislate from the bench and determine how to reconcile all of the laws in Arizona to create a single court-created standard. Here’s the problem. Section 2 of the bill states that:

This act does not:

1. Create or recognize a right to abortion or alter generally accepted medical standards. The Legislature does not intend this act to make lawful an abortion that is currently unlawful.”

2. Repeal, by implication or otherwise, section 13-3603, Arizona Revised Statutes, or any other applicable state law regulating or restricting abortion.”

Is everyone reading the number two line there? The 15 week abortion ban law, SB 1164, explicitly says that the bill does NOT repeal any previous laws. Which means that if the 1901 abortion ban law was never repealed before now, just suspended via a court injunction, then SB 1164 doesn’t repeal it either. Now, I am not a lawyer, and I know that Planned Parenthood would kill (pun and all implications intended) to find a loophole. Even with my non-legal expertise, I’m not seeing much of a loophole here. Again, this all falls back on Democrats, who never imagined that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, or that the Supreme Court would someday not do the left’s bidding.

And what are the odds that Brnovich’s office holds off on making a decision until after the November midterms? Democrats are desperate to use abortion as a cudgel against Republicans, but apparently that line of attack didn’t materialize well in the Senate debate between Blake Masters and Mark Kelly. By most accounts, Masters cleaned Kelly’s clock (and you know that he did because mainstream outlets didn’t declare Kelly the winner in the debate). If Mark Kelly doesn’t have abortion to try and use as a counterpunch, then what does he have? It’s not like he can stand on the shoulders of Biden’s many accomplishments. And Democrat Katie Hobbs, who still is hiding from Republican Kari Lake in the gubernatorial race, is completely happy to send out tweets instead of actually debating the issue.

My statement on the Arizona Court of Appeals ruling: pic.twitter.com/U0sYwzRUeL

— Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) October 8, 2022

The only real solution that will stop the legal merry-go-round is for the Arizona legislature to pass another law, either confirming the 1901 abortion ban, or repealing it in favor of the 15 week abortion ban. Planned Parenthood has a monetary interest in having some form of abortion available within Arizona, and their ghoulish worship of the murder of innocents, cloaked in the deceptive language of “rights” and “healthcare” is sickening. Ultimately, the people of Arizona, either via their legislators or by initiative, are going to have to decide just how much abortion they want in their state. And THAT was the entire point of overturning Roe v. Wade. The decision now belongs with the voters of each state, not the judges.

Featured image via Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license