Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday signed the state’s most far-reaching anti-abortion measure in years, criminalizing providing abortions sought because of a genetic abnormality.

Rejecting fears by doctors they could get arrested, Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday signed a new law restricting who can get an abortion.

Acting under the banner of protecting disability rights, the Republican-controlled legislature on Thursday voted along party lines to impose a new restriction on a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy by making it a crime to abort a child because of a fetal genetic defect.

A sweeping anti-abortion bill will get another chance to pass the Arizona Legislature, after Senate Republicans used a convoluted series of motions to override their own rules and send the bill back for amendments.

A Republican senator who has developed a reputation for carefully parsing bills dealt a blow to Arizona’s anti-abortion lobby when he voted against what would have been the most far-reaching abortion legislation passed in Arizona in years.

Arizona will not be enacting a law to outlaw virtually all abortions, at least not this year.

After more than two hours of impassioned and at times acrimonious debate, the House voted 31-29 along party lines Thursday to advance a bill that would put several new restrictions on abortion in Arizona.

Brushing aside questions of legality and religion, a House panel voted March 17 along party lines to imprison doctors who terminate a pregnancy solely because the fetus has a genetic defect.

Let’s not allow lives to be lost and women to struggle alone when help exists. Let’s save lives and prevent decades of suffering and regret. No woman should have to feel that abortion is her only option. The time to pass this bill is now.

By the February 19 deadline to hear bills in committees in their chambers of origin, more than 950 measures were left to die