Republicans have long crowed that they are the party of freedom, individual liberty and small-government conservatism.

Arizona’s abortion ruling shows that they’re anything but.

Arizona — one of the most important states on the political map — could soon have one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country, based on a law that was passed before Arizona was a state, all because those same small-government conservatives decided to use government to tell women what they’re permitted to do with their bodies.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in favor of an 1864 law banning abortion in all cases, at any stage of pregnancy, except when it’s necessary to save the mother’s life. No exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

It would supersede the 15-week abortion ban passed by the state legislature and signed into law in March 2022.

The law goes into effect 14 days hence, but the state’s attorney general said she won’t enforce it.

The ruling, a 4-2 decision, came just a day after Donald Trump stumbled through a feeble attempt to define his own abortion policy: He said he supported leaving the issue up to the states, while in the same announcement, took credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, wiping out a 50-year-precedent for legal abortion nationwide.

“We defer, as we are constitutionally obligated to do, to the legislature’s judgment, which is accountable to, and thus reflects, the mutable will of our citizens,” Arizona Justice John Lopez wrote. (All the justices were appointed by a Republican governor.)

Instead, the Arizona court decided to go with a law written 160 years ago. Well, of course! Everyone knows folks today think exactly the way people did in 1864!

Duh!

Since Roe’s repeal, 12 other states have tried to ban nearly all abortions. Other states are considering it.

A states’ rights advocate might argue that different communities will see an issue differently. “The choices folks in San Francisco might make may differ quite a bit from folks in a rural county in Kansas,” as one tweet argued. “Neither group of people would be wrong.”

That misses the point. The underlying message in that tweet is that neither group’s choice is wrong. Yet, we would deny a person’s ability to choose for themself — not because the choice itself is wrong, but because their choice of where to live was wrong.

We talk about being a divided nation, and that people have radically different views on volatile issues. That doesn’t mean people of radically differing views don’t live in the same communities. San Francisco, you might find hard to believe, has plenty of conservative-minded residents, and vice-verse in rural Kansas. Thus, millions of people living where abortion bans are in effect are being denied a choice that the tweet says is not inherently wrong. Meanwhile, there’s no law in San Francisco requiring people to get abortions.

Do the justices on the Arizona Supreme Court fail to see this? I don’t know. But their ruling not only denies individual freedom for people who live in predominantly blue counties like Maricopa, Pima and Coconino (home to Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, respectively); they’re denying it to pro-choice residents living in predominantly red counties. That is an inequitable application of the law.

In fairness, justices aren’t supposed to be swayed by anything other than the law. Theoretically, they are legally landlocked.........

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