For almost 40 years, the law has been that you cannot ban previability abortions, and that’s exactly what Arizona did.

~ ACLU attorney Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, on a new Arizona law set to take affect Thursday that will ban abortions past 18 weeks gestation (counted as 20 weeks of pregnancy) except to save the life of the mother – i.e., no health or viability exception, as quoted by the Huffington Post.

Yesterday a federal judge ruled the law constitutional, according to the Associated Press:

U.S. District Judge James Teilborg said the statute may prompt a few pregnant women who are considering abortion to make the decision earlier. But he said the law is constitutional because it does not prohibit women from making the decision to end their pregnancies. He also wrote that the state had provided “substantial and well-documented” evidence that a fetus has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion by at least 20 weeks.

Abortion groups say they will file an emergency appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.