Providers are optimistic for a different future for abortion in the state even as Republicans flounder in their response

The waiting room of the Acacia Women’s Center in Phoenix, Arizona, was calm and quiet on Friday. Patients sat with their mothers, friends or partners, paying no mind to the slapstick Tyler Perry movie on the TV and an arrangement of Vogue magazines resting on a table.

It had been three days since the state’s highest court reinstated an 1864 law that would ban almost all abortions and send abortion providers to prison for up to five years.

The revival of the 160-year-old statute has kickstarted deep uncertainty over the fate of clinics like Acacia, one of the few medical centers left providing abortions in the state.

Some of the women awaiting the procedure that day said they were deeply worried by the state supreme court’s decision. Others didn’t want to talk about it.