06.25.09
AZ Senators OK abortion restrictions
The following Arizona Daily Star headline caught my eye yesterday afternoon (6/24/2009). I had not heard anything about these bills before yesterday and I freaked out! Was Arizona going the way of South Dakota and with a one-two-punch, repeat the attempt to require teens get parental permission before they try to get a “prescription” and support pharmacists who want to deny the “morning after” pill because it goes against their religious beliefs? (This last blog article is about Religious Right/American Taliban nutjobs who attempted to support pharmacists in Illinois.)
Here’s a brief run-down of the story and the legislation that has passed in both the Arizona state House and Senate:
The bill would require a woman to wait at least 24 hours between the time she first sees a doctor and the time she actually can get an abortion. It also establishes a series of procedures that must be followed in that time.At the first meeting, the doctor who will perform the abortion must discuss the risks and alternatives to the procedure, as well as the probable “anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child at the time the abortion is to be performed.”
It also requires someone at the clinic — it would not have to be the doctor — tell the woman that medical assistance benefits may be available if she decides to keep the child, that public and private agencies and services are available to assist during pregnancy and after childbirth, and that the father is liable for child support even if he agrees to pay for an abortion.
PHB 2564, which was approved on a 16-12 vote. Here are the two bills listed on the Arizona State Legislature web site:
http://www.azleg.gov/DocumentsForBill.asp?Bill_Number=HB2564
http://www.azleg.gov/DocumentsForBill.asp?Bill_Number=SB1206
In separate action Tuesday, the Senate voted 20-8 to adopt a new — and presumably legal — state statute banning “partial-birth” abortions.
Arizona outlawed the procedure in 1997. But that law was struck down by a federal judge.
HB 2400, which also has passed the House, mirrors a federal law that bans the procedure, a law that the U.S. Supreme Court declared legal.
http://www.azleg.gov/DocumentsForBill.asp?Bill_Number=HB2400
Here’s what I wrote to Governor Jan Brewer:
Governor Brewer,
I respectfully request that you veto the House Bills HB2564 and HB2400 and the Senate Bill SB1206 as they come to your desk.
I completely agree with the sentiments issued by State Senator Linda Lopez as quoted in the Tucson Arizona Daily Star http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/298320.php :(Lopez) called the measure an improper government intervention into a private decision.
“It assumes that this Legislature knows what’s best for a woman who’s making one of the most difficult decisions of her life,”
“It puts this Legislature squarely between a woman and her physician, and between a woman and her family,” Lopez continued. “This Legislature has no business in either place.”
Please help to keep abortion available and stop the criminalization of physicians who perform abortions. Please help Arizona be a state that supports and respects its female population: lets give women credit that they can make sound decisions about what happens to their bodies!
Please don’t castigate women who are raped — please help them with continued access to the so-called “morning after” pills. Please don’t let pharmacists dictate what a woman can or cannot do. Please help keep religion out of pharmacy.
Please keep laws out of women’s bodies and please help Arizona lower its national ranking of the state with the highest teen pregnancy rate and female teen school drop-out rate.
We want to affect change in our state, please help to end the idiocy that is “abstinence-only” sex education in our public schools. If we are at the top of the national list in teen pregnancies, then we are also opening our teens up to STDs including HIV.
I am a registered Democrat and I am reaching out to you as our Governor to please do the right thing for the women of Arizona. Please veto the above bills as they cross your desk.
Thank you for your time and consideration in these matters.
(Well, I hope I submitted that to the Governor’s office. Their CAPTCHA script on their email form submission page kept converting my entries to lowercase when they should have all been uppercase. Its a conspiracy, I tell ya!)
Please take a few moments and access the Feedback page/form on the Contact Us page and respectfully request that Governor Brewer veto any present and future anti-women’s rights/anti-female legislation that crosses her desk. Well… we can hope, right?
