PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday signed a sweeping anti-abortion bill that bans the procedure if the woman is seeking it solely because a fetus has a genetic abnormality such as Down syndrome.

Doctors who perform an abortion solely because the child has a survivable genetic issue can face felony charges. The proposal also contains a raft of other provisions sought by abortion opponents.

The measure passed the Republican-controlled Legislature on party-line votes over unanimous opposition from minority Democrats. The Republican governor is an abortion opponent who has never vetoed a piece of anti-abortion legislation.

Senate Bill 1457 moved through the Legislature in fits and starts, stalling twice before moving again amid intense pressure by abortion opponents on GOP lawmakers who opposed some of its provisions. It finally passed both chambers last week.

The abortion bill as originally written made it a felony for a doctor to perform the procedure because the fetus has a genetic abnormality such as Down syndrome, and contained a slew of other provisions, including one that confers all civil rights to unborn children. Democrats call that “personhood” provision a backdoor way to allow criminal charges against a woman who has an abortion.

In addition to the ban on abortions for genetic abnormalities and the “personhood” provision, the bill bans mail delivery of abortion-inducing medication, allows the father or maternal grandparents of a fetus aborted due to a genetic issue to sue, and bans the spending of any state money toward organizations that provide abortion care.

Latest News

• BCN-Update feed
• BCN Test Content with another content 2
• BCN Test Content with another content 1
• BCN Test Content with another content 3
• BCN Excerpt Test Parenthesis

The measure also requires fetal remains to be buried or cremated, and it forbids state universities from providing abortion care.

The bill was amended twice to allay the concerns of a pair of Republicans — one worried that a woman would be forced to carry a fetus that could not survive and a second concerned that a doctors’ medical decisions could be overruled by a jury. That GOP-backed amendment also clarified that the “personhood” provision does not ban in-vitro fertilization.

The Democrats issued a lengthy written rebuttal to the bill after the final amendment.

The measure was a top priority for the social conservative group Center for Arizona Policy. Its president, Cathi Herrod, routinely backs anti-abortion bills in the Legislature. National anti-abortion groups hailed its passage.

Abortion rights groups rallied at the Capitol on Monday, urging Ducey to veto the measure and presenting him with petitions signed by opponents of the bill.

Republican-controlled legislatures in Arizona and several other states — emboldened by the possibility that a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court could overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that found women have a constitutional right to seek an abortion — have embraced proposals this year that could completely ban abortion. An Arizona proposal doing that, however, has not advanced.

Earlier this month, a divided federal appeals court lifted the hold on a similar Ohio law that prohibits doctors from performing abortions based on a fetal diagnosis of Down syndrome.

Judges of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowly reversed two earlier decisions blocking enforcement of Ohio’s 2017 law. A majority of the appeals court said the law doesn’t impede a woman’s right to an abortion.

Monday’s amendment to the Arizona bill also added a legislative intent clause that included much of the reasoning the appeals court used in the Ohio decision.