Before the Civil War, very few states had laws restricting abortion in the early stages of a pregnancy. For those states that criminalized abortion, most laws attached penalties after “quickening,” that is after a woman can feel her baby move. This is typically in the second trimester of the pregnancy. The Arizona ban passed in the last year of the Civil War is one of the most draconian laws in the country. William Claude Jones is typically given credit for the statute. He was the leader of the legislature, but the actual law seems to have been written by William Howell. Howell was a New Yorker who moved Michigan, and, in 1863, to Arizona. Howell’s Code, which set the law for the territory, says:
“And every person who shall administer or cause to be administered or taken, any medicinal substances, or shall use or cause to be used any instruments whatever, with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child, and shall be thereof duly convicted, shall be punished,” except for a physician “who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.”
This section of Howell’s Code seems to have been copied from the legal code of the State of California.
William Claude Jones is usually credited as the force behind the Arizona anti-abortion law which made it a crime to end a pregnancy at any time, although he did not write it. While he now has a great impact on women in Arizona, he was not born there and he did not die there. Jones died in Hawaii in 1884 and his obituaries name four different locations where he was born. By the end of his life, Jones said that he was from Alabama, his mother was a Spanish “Lady”, he had been educated in a Catholic school but none of these “facts” have ever been confirmed.
In 1837 and 1838, Jones was a private in a Missouri company in the Seminole War. In Missouri later, Jones was a “colonel” of a local militia unit raised to put-down the Mormons. He then began to advance in the Missouri Democratic Party which was tied into the expansion of slavery. In the 1840s he was elected a Missouri state senator and he married and had three children. Jones relocated to Arkansas, while continuing to hold on to his seat in the Missouri senate. After the Gold Rush, he went to California, leaving his wife and three children behind. One son died. In 1853, he was back in Missouri again, but by 1854 President Pierce had appointed him U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Territory. Jones accused James Longstreet of purchasing Mexican grain for his army unit without paying import duties.
Jones wanted to divide the New Mexico Territory into two parts, with the western area to be called “Arizona.” Jones may have named the future state.
A Federal judge, Kirby Benedict, who knew him at this times said that Jones was “peculiar…an erratic genius.” While Jones had real talent, the judge said that he was under the influence of his appetites and passions. When his wife divorced him, Jones married a twelve year old girl. He was in his thirties. New Mexico’s delegate in Washington asked President Buchanan to recall Jones because he had evidence that he had abducted his newly wed wife. Jones submitted his resignation and by 1860 he was living apart from his wife.
In February of 1861, Jones came out in favor of the Confederacy and he announced that he would run to be a delegate in the new Confederate Congress. In May he raised the Confederate flag in what would become Arizona and he called for the Confederate Army to invade Arizona. When the Confederates did invade New Mexico in 1862, he joined the army in its retreat, following it to Texas. In 1864, he crossed into Union territory in New Mexico and sworn an oath of allegiance to the United States. In July, he was elected to the first Arizona Territorial Legislature. In September he was elected speaker of the House. At this time the Arizona ban on abortion was passed. While Jones guided it through the legislature, we do not know if he had any part in writing the language of the abortion law. The law has sentences of from two to five years for persons involved in abortion from the moment of conception onwards except to save the life of the mother.
At this busy time, Jones married his third wife, a fifteen year old girl. He was nearly fifty. In 1865, Jones left his third wife. She never saw him again.
Jones next appeared in California and by 1868 he was in Hawaii. He was elected to the new legislature and he married a fourteen year old child on the big island. He and his native Hawaiian wife had five children. He was named a judge for Honolulu although the U.S. minister called him a “second rate” lawyer. In 1881, his wife died and he married his fifth wife. Two years later he filed for divorce.
Source:
William Claude Jones: The Charming Rouge Who Named Arizona by L.Boyd Finch published in The Journal of Arizona History 1990.
Note on Illustration:
The illustration is from the National Police Gazette of 1847.
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