Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D) issued a executive order on Friday barring the state’s 15 county prosecutors from prosecuting abortion-related crimes.
The measure centralizes prosecutorial power to the state’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, who, like Hobbs, campaigned for office last year to protect abortion rights.
“I will not allow extreme and disengaged politicians to get in the way of Arizonans’ fundamental right to make decisions about their own bodies and their futures. I will continue to fight to expand access to safe and legal abortion in any way I can,” Hobbs said in a statement Friday.
The executive order applies to all future and pending prosecutions at the county level related to any state law that restricts access to abortion. In Arizona, abortion is banned at 15 weeks under a measure that Hobbs’ Republican predecessor, Doug Ducey signed into law in March 2022.
The executive order does a number of other things, including prohibiting Arizona authorities from extraditing people to other states for alleged violations of the abortion law that are legal in Arizona and establishing an advisory council on reproductive freedom with members appointed by Hobbs.
republicans he quickly rebuffed Hobbs’ efforts.
“At the very least, this order shows disrespect and contempt for the judiciary. Arizona’s abortion laws are still in dispute in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs ruling,” said state House Speaker Ben Toma (R) in a press release. “The governor cannot unilaterally divert legal authority to prosecute criminal cases from Arizona’s 15 county prosecutors to the attorney general.”
Opponents of abortion in Arizona are currently trying to revive a total ban on abortion originally written in 1864 by asking the Arizona Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that the state’s 15-week ban supersedes the more extreme of nearly 160 years ago.
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