The Arizona Supreme Court ruled 4-2 in favor of an anti-abortion obstetrician and a county prosecutor who took up defense of the law after the state's Democratic attorney general declined to do so.
Justice John Lopez, who like all of the court's members was appointed by a Republican governor, wrote that to date, the state's legislature "has never affirmatively created a right to, or independently authorized, elective abortion."
"We defer, as we are constitutionally obligated to do, to the legislature's judgment, which is accountable to, and thus reflects, the mutable will of our citizens," Lopez wrote.
The state high court lifted the stay on enforcement of the 19th century law but will only allow it to be enforced prospectively. It stayed enforcement of its decision for 14 days to allow the parties to raise any remaining issues at the trial court level.