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APRIL 19, 2024 | NISSAN 11, 5784 | VOLUME 76, NUMBER 17
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Arizona’s big abortion ruling reverberates Happy throughout local Jewish community Passover SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER
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ne of Dr. Tracy Contant’s worst fears came to pass on Tuesday, April 9, when Arizona’s Supreme Court upheld an 1864 abortion ban in the state, virtually outlawing all abortions. Upon hearing the news, Contant, an OB-GYN at Valleywise Health Medical Center and Congregation Beth Israel congregant, felt “profound sadness for all the women who are going to be affected,” she told Jewish News. Two years ago, when the Civil War-era ban took on new life at the behest of former Arizona Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, the usually reserved Contant decided she had to take a stand. She participated in an interfaith clergy prayer circle organized by National Council of Jewish Women Arizona (NCJW AZ) and led by six Greater Phoenix rabbis, including her own, Rabbi Sara Mason-Barkin. She addressed a gathering of more than 100 Jewish women distressed over the state of abortion rights and she gave an in-depth interview to Jewish News about what any abortion ban means for her pregnant patients. The Arizona Court of Appeals quickly issued a stay on the ban, leaving a 15-week abortion ban passed earlier that year in place; a few months later, it ruled the 1864 and 2022 laws could eventually be “harmonized,” but the 15-week ban superseded the older one. Though Contant opposed that ban, explaining how lethal or significant fetal anomalies can be found after 15 weeks, she was relieved that it seemed, at least, the total ban would not take effect. However, the Supreme Court took
up a review of the appeals court’s decision blocking the pre-statehood abor tion ban last year, and on April 9, in a 4-2 decision, declared there was no ambiguity in what Republican lawmakers wanted when they passed the law on party lines. “This (intent clause) Sign at the rally for reproductive rights at the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza on can reasonably bear Dec. 12, 2023, when the near-total ban from 1864 was being debated across only one meaning: the street in the Arizona Supreme Court. COURTESY OF GLORIA REBECCA GOMEZ/ARIZONA MIRROR the legislature did not in abortion to two to five years in prison. intend the act to codify an independent The only exception is if it’s necessary to save statutory right to an elective abortion before the mother’s life; there are no exceptions for fifteen weeks’ gestation or otherwise repeal rape or incest. As the paper went to press, any other abortion laws more restrictive the ban was set to go into effect 60 days than S.B. 1164.…” justices for the majority from the ruling, barring any other litigation. opinion wrote. Rep. Matt Gress (R-04) told Jewish News Now Contant is devastated by “the level he intends to make a motion to overturn of suffering and anguish women will face,” the ban when the legislature is in session on as well as outraged by the “intellectual Wednesday, April 17. hypocrisy of politicians and cowardice of Orthodox rabbinical candidate Karolyn justices who voted to uphold the 1864 law.” Benger was already depressed by Roe’s Her view is shared with a wide swath reversal. “Hearing the news on Tuesday, I of other Arizona Jews and American Jews was actually quite numb,” she told Jewish more broadly. According to a 2023 Jewish News. She told of having friends whose Electorate Institute (JEI) survey, 88% of doctors, so cowed by current abortion American Jews believe abortion should be restrictions, allowed sepsis to set in before legal in most or all cases. The nonpartisan aborting an unviable pregnancy. “This is in JEI’s survey included interviews with 800 spite of the fact that maternal sepsis is the self-identified Jewish voters. second leading cause of maternal death in The 1864 ban, written before women America! It’s very clear that women’s lives could even vote, subjects any person aiding SEE RULING, PAGE 2
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