Last week U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes, an Obama nominee, blocked two critical anti-discrimination provisions of Arizona Senate Bill (SB) 1457. The law passed this spring to protect preborn children with Down syndrome and other abnormalities from the violence of discriminatory abortions. Rayes’ ruling came down on Tuesday, September 28, 2021, only eight hours before the law was scheduled to go into effect.
SB 1457 became state law on April 27 of this year, and prior to Tuesday’s court decision, was set to ban discriminatory abortions based on a genetic prenatal diagnosis such as Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis. As previously reported by Live Action News:
According to a recent Marist poll, the majority of Americans do not support discriminatory abortions, with 70% opposing killing children based on a prenatal diagnosis such as Down syndrome. This includes 56% who identify as pro-choice, 59% who are Democrats, and 70% who are Independents.
In 2015, it was estimated that 90% of babies diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome in the United States were targeted and killed before they were born. Worldwide, the mass extermination of preborn children diagnosed with fetal abnormalities is just as troubling, with countries such as Iceland boasting of “eradicating” Down syndrome nationwide. In reality, they had killed all preborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome.
READ: Woman with Down syndrome loses effort to end discriminatory abortions in UK
Now with Judge Rayes’ decision, SB 1457 will no longer be able to ensure felony charges against abortionists who deliberately commit an abortion based on a prenatal diagnosis. In addition to canceling this protection, Tuesday’s ruling also scratched another provision of SB 1457 that “would have let prosecutors bring charges against anyone who helped raise money or pay for abortions done solely because of genetic abnormality.”
According to Judge Rayes, the law requires that providers “mislead their patients into believing that their constitutionally protected choice is unlawful.” While this ruling is not good news for preborn children with Down syndrome and other abnormalities, Judge Rayes did maintain the “personhood” provision of the law, determining that “the state will interpret all laws to confer the rights of people on unborn children, subject to the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court rulings.”
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