A court of appeals from Arizona stopped the application the near total ban on abortion in the state Friday night and stayed a lower court’s decision to reinstate a previous law that does not allow victims of rape or incest to undergo the procedure at any time, a rule that came after the Supreme Court struck down Roe vs Wade which provided federal protection to right to abortion.

The Arizona Court of Appeals order came after Planned Parenthood Arizona, a reproductive health organization, appealed Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson’s September ruling.

The suspension is in effect until the appellate court can hear the appeal. The fact that two conflicting laws are in place regulating abortion rights in Arizona creates confusion and puts people at risk.

Last month, a law went into effect in Arizona that allows abortions up to 15 weeks. which puts it in conflict with the almost total prohibition of the 1864 law.

The Arizona Republican Party Attorney General has previously said he plans to enforce the 1864 law.

The lower court had lifted a decades-old injunction on the near-total restrictions, which have their roots in an 1864 law that only allows abortions if they are necessary to save a pregnant person’s life.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson granted a request by the state’s Republican Attorney General to file a court order that had prevented the application of a ban on abortion prior to the time Arizona declared itself a state in 1912.

“The court finds that because the legal basis for the judgment rendered in 1973 has now been set aside, the judgment must be set aside in its entirety,” Johnson wrote in the ruling, referring to the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade the judicial decision that federally protected the right to abortion.

Judge Peter J. Eckerstrom, writing for the three appellate judges who issued the stay on Friday, said that the trial court may have erred in resurrecting the Civil War-era law, because it conflicts with newer laws that give more leeway to those seeking an abortion.

“Arizona courts have a responsibility to attempt to harmonize all relevant statutes of this state,” Eckerstrom wrote in a one-page order and added that the “acute need of suppliers [de atención médica]tax agencies and the legal clarity public” had prompted the order.

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