PHOENIX (AP) -- An Arizona law prohibiting a late-term abortion procedure doesn't automatically "spring back to life" in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a federal ban, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Attorney General's Office said.

The federal high court's 5-4 decision Wednesday said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The Arizona law enacted in 1997 was struck down by a federal judge, and then-Attorney General Janet Napolitano dropped an appeal filed by her predecessor.

At the time, Napolitano's chief deputy, Tim Delaney, said Napolitano dropped the appeal because the state couldn't win. Delaney said the U.S.

Because the judgment on the Arizona law was final, "it doesn't spring back to life because of the decision from the Supreme Court," said Andrea Esquer, spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's Office.

Esquer declined further comment, saying lawyers in the office hadn't yet studied the Supreme Court opinion.

Napolitano, an abortion rights supporter, said Wednesday she made the correct decision.

Abortion opponents had denounced Napolitano's decision.

Andrew Thomas, then an attorney for Arizona Right to Life and now Maricopa County attorney, said in 1997 that Napolitano's decision amounted to "a veto power over the entire Legislature and governor by refusing to defend this bill."

Arizona's law would have made performing the procedure a felony and would have allowed the father to sue the doctor performing it.