The Ari­zona Supreme Court ruled Tues­day that the state can en­force its long-dor­mant law crim­i­nal­iz­ing all abor­tions ex­cept when a moth­er’s life is at stake.

The case ex­am­ined whether the state is still sub­ject to a law that pre­dates Ari­zona’s state­hood. The 1864 law pro­vides no ex­cep­tions for rape or in­cest but al­lows abor­tions if a moth­er’s life is in dan­ger. The state’s high court rul­ing re­viewed a 2022 de­ci­sion by the state Court of Ap­peals that said doc­tors couldn’t be charged for per­form­ing the pro­ce­dure in the first 15 weeks of preg­nan­cy.

An old­er court de­ci­sion blocked en­forc­ing the 1864 law short­ly af­ter the U.S. Supreme Court is­sued the 1973 Roe v. Wade de­ci­sion guar­an­tee­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to an abor­tion. Af­ter the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, then state At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Mark Brnovich, a Re­pub­li­can, per­suad­ed a state judge in Tuc­son to lift the block on en­forc­ing the 1864 law. Brnovich’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic suc­ces­sor, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Kris Mayes, had urged the state’s high court to side with the Court of Ap­peals and hold the 1864 law in abeyance. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 de­ci­sion end­ing a na­tion­wide right to abor­tion, most Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled states have start­ed en­forc­ing new bans or re­stric­tions and most De­mo­c­rat-dom­i­nat­ed ones have sought to pro­tect abor­tion ac­cess.

Cur­rent­ly, 14 states are en­forc­ing bans on abor­tion at all stages of preg­nan­cy, with lim­it­ed ex­cep­tions. Two states ban the pro­ce­dure once car­diac ac­tiv­i­ty can be de­tect­ed, which is about six weeks in­to preg­nan­cy and of­ten be­fore women re­al­ize they’re preg­nant.

Near­ly every ban has been chal­lenged with a law­suit. Courts have blocked en­forc­ing some re­stric­tions, in­clud­ing bans through­out preg­nan­cy in Utah and Wyoming.

A pro­pos­al pend­ing be­fore the Ari­zona Leg­is­la­ture that would re­peal the 1864 law hasn’t re­ceived a com­mit­tee hear­ing this year. “To­day’s de­ci­sion to reim­pose a law from a time when Ari­zona wasn’t a state, the Civ­il War was rag­ing, and women couldn’t even vote will go down in his­to­ry as a stain on our state,” Mayes said Tues­day.

The jus­tices said the state can start en­forc­ing the law in 14 days. For­mer Ari­zona Gov. Doug Ducey, who signed the state’s cur­rent law re­strict­ing abor­tion af­ter 15 weeks, post­ed on X say­ing Tues­day’s rul­ing was not the out­come he would have want­ed.

“I signed the 15-week law as gov­er­nor be­cause it is thought­ful pol­i­cy and an ap­proach to this very sen­si­tive is­sue that Ari­zo­nans can ac­tu­al­ly agree on,” he said. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden called the 1864 Ari­zona law cru­el.

“Mil­lions of Ari­zo­nans will soon live un­der an even more ex­treme and dan­ger­ous abor­tion ban, which fails to pro­tect women even when their health is at risk or in trag­ic cas­es of rape or in­cest,” he said in a state­ment. “Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris and I stand with the vast ma­jor­i­ty of Amer­i­cans who sup­port a woman’s right to choose. We will con­tin­ue to fight to pro­tect re­pro­duc­tive rights and call on Con­gress to pass a law restor­ing the pro­tec­tions of Roe v. Wade.”

PHOENIX (AP) —