Arizona Supreme Court Justice William Montgomery said Thursday that he will recuse himself from an abortion case involving Planned Parenthood Arizona, reversing his earlier stance to take part in the case.
The justice had previously denied Planned Parenthood Arizona’s motion to recuse himself from an upcoming hearing regarding the enforcement of the state’s 1864 near-total abortion ban.
Nevertheless, the justice said he acknowledged that a judicial officer has a continuing duty “to consider whether recusal may be necessary.”
“Subsequent to the November 22 order, additional information related to the parties and respective counsel has come to my attention warranting that I recuse myself from any further deliberations in this matter,” he said.
The justice did not elaborate on what he meant by “additional information.”
Planned Parenthood Arizona submitted the motion for recusal on Oct. 26, citing Justice Montgomery’s previous statements about the organization on social media and at a protest outside its headquarters in 2015.
In the motion, the organization said Justice Montgomery made a public proclamation in 2017 that Planned Parenthood Arizona is “responsible for the greatest generational genocide known to man.”
It also cited the justice’s 2015 involvement in a protest outside its headquarters during which he accused the organization of, “among other things, engaging in profit-driven atrocities.”
“Planned Parenthood Arizona believes that all litigants in Arizona are entitled to have their cases heard by judges who are not biased against them, and that includes Planned Parenthood Arizona,” Kelley Dupps, the organization’s senior director of public policy and government relations, said in a statement.
Abortion Ban in Arizona
In March 2022, just months before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Arizona adopted a 15-week abortion ban, stating that the 15-week ban would not invalidate an older law that banned abortions outright, in case the law came back into effect due to a reversal of Roe v. Wade.The outright ban was initially enacted in the 1860s during the Civil War period, when Arizona was not even a state.
It was in effect until 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade and legalized abortion nationwide. The same year, an injunction was placed on the state’s total abortion ban.
But the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled in December 2022 that the original law enacted in the 1860s does not apply to doctors, and that licensed physicians who carry out abortions until 15 weeks cannot be prosecuted even as the abortion ban remains in effect for those who are not doctors.
Pro-life groups appealed the decision to the Arizona Supreme Court, which is set to hear oral arguments in December.
