In 1864, which was not a tremendous time for women’s rights, Arizona passed a near-total abortion ban. It would prosecute any “person who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life.” The territorial law was still on the books when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, but the Arizona government had passed a 15-week ban that same year that was intended to supersede it.

Alas, this assumption of supersession appears to have been a catastrophic legislative oopsie. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled this week that the 1864 ban is still enforceable and could go back into effect soon. This decision is pure political poison for Republicans running in a determinative swing state in a presidential election year. And it will add fuel to an effort to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution, a ballot initiative that likely will be on the ballot in November and help draw Democrats to the polls.

What you’re seeing among Arizona Republicans in competitive elections, then, is a race to distance themselves from the state Supreme Court’s decision. But—and not to tell them anything they don’t already know—their past comments aren’t going to make it easy for them to run away from this........

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