A court in Arizona recently ruled that two laws that had already been repealed could not be enforced for any purpose. Both laws restricted medical abortions, those performed using drugs, not surgery. Why did Arizona taxpayers have to pay for a court ruling on a law that was never effective and already repealed?
Two Laws Restricting Abortion
To make getting an abortion as difficult as possible, the Arizona legislature passed SB 1318 in 2015. The law required a doctor who performed a “medication abortion” to tell the patient that it “may be possible” to reverse the abortion if she acts quickly. Then it passed SB 1324, which required the doctor to administer the medication in two stages, on two different days, as the Food and Drug Administration originally approved it.
Court Orders Barred Enforcement
Planned Parenthood, physicians organizations, and other supporters of reproductive rights, sued to challenge both of these laws. A federal court ordered the state not to enforce SB 1318. In a separate case, a state court ordered state officials not to enforce SB 1324.
Repeal
Someone persuaded Republican Governor, Doug Ducey, that the Supreme Court would never uphold either law. In April 2016, he signed SB 1112, which repealed both of them.
Ordinarily, the issue would have been dead. But the Arizona Attorney General tried to keep the litigation going to preserve the state’s options. On August 23, 2016, the federal court dismissed the complaint.
Why Was SB 1318 Wrong About Abortion Reversal?
The problem with this law was that it required physicians to tell their patients something that was not true. There is no scientific research on any procedure to reverse a medical abortion.
Medical abortion requires the use of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, in order to cause the uterus to release the contents of the pregnancy. When the drugs were administered in two steps, the mifepristone was administered first, then the misoprostol. If the woman did not get the second dose, the drug might not work to complete the abortion.
The medical profession, especially the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said there was no scientific support for “reversal.” Arizona physicians said the law was based on “junk science” and “quackery.”
The state officials relied on the work of a physician who claimed that administering progesterone would reverse the abortion process and save the pregnancy. But in October 2015, they asked the court to delay the scheduled trial because their witness did not yet have enough research or publications to qualify as an expert in court.
