Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said any solutions besides codifying abortion rights would be insufficient to combat the near-total abortion ban from 1864 that may be implemented in Arizona.
“The damage is done,” Gallego, who’s running for the state’s U.S. Senate seat, told NBC News on Sunday. “Any initiative they pass right now wouldn’t even take effect for quite a while.”
The Arizona Supreme Court decided Tuesday that the 1864 abortion criminalization law could go into effect and sent it back to a lower court to hear arguments. The law would make abortion illegal except for pregnancies that threaten the life of the patient. It makes no exceptions for rape or incest.
The law is not currently in effect, but it would supersede the state’s 15-week abortion ban.
Gallego also explained why a repeal of the 1864 abortion ban wouldn’t work, saying, “To make matters worse, it could just get overturned later by another state House or state Senate.”
“The only protection we really, really have is to codify this and put this on the ballot and enshrine Roe and protect abortion rights,” he added.
After the Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday, Gallego referred to it as “devastating news for Arizona women, whose rights have been set back 160 years,” in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“I will never stop fighting for Arizonans’ reproductive freedom and will do all I can to protect abortion rights,” Gallego wrote.
Gallego has been known to be a seemingly progressive politician, but he has recently started taking a more moderate tone to appeal to swing voters, according to The New York Times. He is set to battle against Kari Lake, the leading GOP candidate for Senate in Arizona, in November.