Arizona House Republicans moved again in a Wednesday legislative session to block Democrats’ effort to repeal the state’s near-total abortion ban from the Civil-War era. That law was reinstated — but has yet to be enacted — by the state’s Supreme Court last week.
Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a Democrat from Tucson, moved to introduce House Bill 2677, which would have repealed Arizona’s abortion ban that criminalizes the procedure and has no exceptions for rape and incest. Abortions under the law are only allowed if “necessary to save a woman’s life.”
The Republican-led House blocked Stahl-Hamilton’s motion and all subsequent motions by Democrats who attempted to debate the bill on the floor.
Republican House Speaker, Rep. Ben Toma had a decisive vote. Toma said he voted against introducing the bill because it cut out the public from having input. The statute is still being contested in court and Toma said he didn’t want to rush a repeal through the Legislature.
“We have a process. That process should be respected. It is not being respected,” Toma said.
Democrat House Minority Assistant Leader Oscar De Los Santos, D-Laveen, and Alma Hernandez, D-Tucson, said that the bill was introduced in January and Democrats had been trying to repeal the 1864 statute for years.
“Yes, we do have process but that process is broken constantly in this chamber,” Hernandez said. “This bill had already been introduced. It could have been heard in the health committee. It could have been heard in any committee.”
Though Republicans thwarted Stahl-Hamilton’s move to introduce the bill, citing procedural rules, they allowed a vote to weigh whether GOP actions blocking the Democrat’s effort were valid.
A 30-30 tie vote led to no legislative action to repeal Arizona’s 1864 ban on abortion. Rep. Matt Gress of Phoenix was the only Republican to vote with Democrats. Gress has repeatedly said that Arizona’s new abortion law goes too far.
“There’s an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to come to together and repeal Arizona’s Territorial Abortion Law. We need a reasonable policy that protects women and new life — not the extremes,” he said in an April 12 post on his X social media account, less than a week before today’s repeal effort in the House.
“Arizonans want us to find common ground on the important issue of abortion,” Gress said in a separate April 11 post. He backed reinstating a ban on abortion that had more leeway, which House Republicans had passed in 2022 prior to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
Gress said Arizona should “return to the more reasonable 15-week policy that protects women and new life. That’s where I stand.”
The battle over abortion is expected to draw voters to the polls in the presidential and state elections this year.
Noble Predictive Insights surveyed 1,002 registered Arizona voters in February 2024, and found that 90% of respondents said abortion should be legal in some form and 81% said a candidate’s stance on abortion is moderately to very impactful on their vote.
Another poll by the Public Religion Research Institute of an estimated 20,000 voters nationwide in 2022 showed only 7% of Arizonans think abortion should be illegal in all cases.
Women across Arizona have been blasting the decision as a danger to their health care and human rights, and calling out male officials for rulings and laws that could imperil their lives.
All of Arizona’s Supreme Court justices are GOP appointees placed in their seats by former Republican governors Doug Ducey and Jan Brewer. All but two of the seven sitting justices are men.
House legislators were expected to take up repeal efforts again Wednesday afternoon.
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