Judge hears closing arguments in case challenging several Arizona abortion regulations

It’s now up to a judge to decide whether Arizona can continue to enforce several state laws regulating abortions. Parties made closing arguments Monday in a case challenging the state’s mandatory 24-hour wait to get an abortion, along with other laws.

The lawsuit stems from a 2024 ballot measure in which voters enshrined broad abortion rights in the state constitution. Shortly after the measure passed, a judge permanently blocked an Arizona law that had banned abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. The procedure is now allowed in Arizona until fetal viability — around 24 weeks — with some exceptions beyond that.

But other Arizona abortion laws remain in place.

Arizona law bans prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine and bans abortions when fetal abnormalities have been diagnosed. And, to get an abortion, Arizona patients must have an ultrasound and they must wait at least a day after their first visit with a doctor.

In their lawsuit, a pair of Arizona abortion providers and the Arizona Medical Association said the new constitutional amendment should be grounds for overturning those laws.

During Monday’s closing arguments, their attorney, Caroline Sacerdote with the Center for Reproductive Rights, argued that the state’s mandatory 24-hour delay is not only burdensome for patients, but said it also violates the state’s new constitutional amendment, which limits the state’s ability to interfere with a patient’s right to abortion before fetal viability.

“It overrides some patients’ decision to obtain an abortion altogether, or to obtain a medication abortion by pushing them past the gestational limit,” Sacerdote said.

And Sacerdote said the state’s ban on abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities also prevents patients from getting abortions in Arizona.

“[It] most clearly overrides patient decision making by forcing providers to turn away patients because the state disagrees with their reason for seeking constitutionally protected care,” Sacerdote said.

The lawsuit was filed against the state of Arizona. That would typically mean the state Attorney General’s Office would defend the challenged laws in court. But Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, is in agreement with the doctors who filed the case. Instead, two top Republican state lawmakers, House Speaker Steve Montenegro and Senate President Warren Petersen, stepped in as intervenors to argue in favor of the laws.

In his closing arguments, Justin Smith, Montenegro and Peterson’s attorney, said that the case should be dismissed since Mayes has said she will not prosecute Arizona doctors under the challenged abortion laws.

“There is no imminent threat right now because of the Attorney General’s current position,” Smith said.

Smith also argued that regulations around telemedicine, or requirements that doctors must provide certain state-mandated information to patients during abortion consultations do not outlaw abortion.

“Abortion doesn’t mean telemedicine, abortion doesn’t mean material or pamphlets,” Smith said. “Abortion is that specific procedure and that specific procedure is still allowed under each one of these provisions.”

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Greg Como sounded skeptical of that argument.

“They might decide they don’t want to do telemedicine, but when you tell them you don’t have that choice, you remove that choice from their purview, how is that not infringing on their decision making?” Como asked Smith.

Como said he would need at least 30 days to issue a decision in the case.