A law that would have forced Arizona doctors to tell women that their abortion could be “reversed” was officially extinguished in federal court today.
The 2015 law never officially went into effect — a lawsuit from the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU kept it in limbo — but this decision guarantees its fate. The court decided the lawsuit against the law (and the law itself) was obsolete after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) repealed this particular measure in May. Ducey’s repeal went into effect on Aug. 6.
“Junk science has no place in medicine.”
The law would have mandated all abortion doctors in the state to inform their patients that a medication abortion can be reversed, which is a lie. There is no scientific evidence or research backing up this claim.
Leading medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, called the law “quackery”.
“Women should never be force-fed lies and misinformation about their health in order to advance a political agenda,” said Nancy Northup, president of CRR, in a press release.
“Junk science has no place in medicine and we are confident these unconstitutional restrictions on safe and legal abortion will continue to crumble across the country.”
This decision is one of the many state-level pro-choice rulings that have appeared in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic June trial — which ruled in favor of abortion access.
Ducey, however, is far from a leader in the pro-choice community. He only repealed this “abortion reversal” law because state attorneys told him it was entirely indefensible in court. The conservative governor has also backed a handful of bills to defund Planned Parenthood and ban fetal tissue research, and has promised to reduce abortions in the state in efforts to “protect the preborn.”