Women who want to terminate a pregnancy would have to justify they're not doing it because they want a child of a different sex or race under the terms of new legislation.
HB 2443, crafted by Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, would require a woman to sign an affidavit that she is not seeking an abortion because of the child's sex or race. Montenegro has a separate measure, HB 2442, dealing only with abortions based on sex selection.
Any doctor who went ahead with an abortion knowing that race or sex selection was the reason would face felony charges. And the legislation would permit the father of the unborn child, if married to the woman having the abortion, to sue the doctor for damages.
A separate measure sponsored by Rep. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix and 34 other Republicans from both the House and Senate would require doctors to perform ultrasound on the patient and offer to provide both an explanation of what is being seen and a physical picture of the fetus. HB 2416 also would bar abortions unless the woman was given the chance to "hear the heartbeat of the unborn child if the heartbeat is audible.''
Yee, who said she opposes abortion, said she believes some women do not have a full understanding of what they are doing.
Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, said he is still studying the latter measure. But the proposal by Montenegro provoked an angry reaction.
"It's deeply offensive to suggest that women and couples are making decisions from a racial or gender bias,'' he said. "It just reflects a really warped perspective on the part of the proponents.''
But Montenegro said he has information "that there are targeted communities that the abortion industry targets.'' Montenegro said that, for the purposes of his ban, he defines an abortion based on race would include situations where the parents are the same race as the fetus.
As proof of that targeting, Montenegro said there is a higher rate of abortion among minorities. And he said more females are aborted than males which suggests some women may be using abortion for gender selection.
The Arizona Department of Health Services does not collect information on the gender of the fetus. And it is only recently it started to ask doctors whether a patient is Hispanic.
Montenegro, who promised supporting data when interviewed initially last week, said late Wednesday he will have more specifics to back those claims today.
Some legal questions remain.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade ruling, said women have an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy, at least in the first trimester. And while courts have made some modifications, that decision still stands.
"I don't agree with Roe v. Wade,'' Montenegro said. But even with that being the law, he questioned the scope of that ruling.
"I'm not sure that the court was saying gender selection through abortion was OK,'' he said.
Anyway, Montenegro said his measure is designed to prevent discrimination which also is prohibited by federal law. And that, he said, trumps the abortion rights.
"In this area, I think it's imperative that I step up and protect the life of a person if it's being discriminated against based on their sex or race,'' Montenegro said.
Constitutional questions aside, Howard said there are practical problems to the proposal.
"This legislation would require women and couples to present a case for their health care and then put physicians in the subjective position of deciding whether their reasons are valid enough,'' he said.
"The physician's role is to assess the clinical situation and to provide high-quality care,'' Howard continued. " This is really ... politicians putting physicians in a new role that physicians I know don't want.''
Yee said her legislation is simply an extension of existing laws to provide a "reflection period'' for women to consider what they are doing.
In 2009 the Legislature approved a 24-hour waiting period between an initial consultation to explain the procedure and the actual abortion, forcing a woman to make two separate trips to the clinic.
A judge ruled that two-trip requirement is unduly burdensome. But he said the waiting period is legal if the initial consultation can be done by phone.
Yee said HB 2416 would "make sure the mother has all of the information that is available before she's making a decision like this.'' Yee said, though, her ultimate goal would be to make abortion illegal.
"I believe that the abortion laws that are currently in place are infringing upon the rights of the unborn,'' she said. And Yee said she believes information like what she wants to mandate will reduce the number of terminated pregnancies.
"I have spoken to numerous young mothers who have been remorseful after they had the abortion in place,'' she said. Yee said one woman, given a copy of the pre-abortion ultrasound image after the procedure, told her she would have changed her mind had she seen it before "and hear the heart beat before.''
Slabside posted at 10:44 pm on Wed, Jan 26, 2011.
I'm for it! Legal abortion - Hitler would have loved it.
mvccd1000 posted at 12:19 am on Thu, Jan 27, 2011.
It's difficult to imagine a more ridiculous bill being proposed. As much as I support the repubs in their efforts to protect 2A rights and end illegal immigration, I'm sure ready to see someone in office who will undo the years of "forced morality" legislation they cram down our throats. Keep your religion at home, please, lawmakers.
rrjenn posted at 12:13 pm on Thu, Jan 27, 2011.
No matter how you want to spin it, abortion is an act of homicide. An act of a human killing another human. Obviously, as a society, we allow certain homicidal acts. Capital punishment is a good example. Defense of one's life is another. Under certain conditions I would allow abortions, but not just any reason would do. Abortion on demand used as a form of birth control is about as immoral as having a baby full term and dumping it in a dumpster, and should perhaps be considered as murder. A pregnancy as a result of rape I could endorse an abortion, but if you cannot control yourself like a dog in heat and get abortions every year, I would make it a requirement that you be sterilized at the time of your second abortion. Aborting a human life is not something to take lightly. If you take the position that abortion is strictly a woman's prerogative to use as she sees fit, how can you say that you value any human life, at all?
reddi27 posted at 12:42 pm on Thu, Jan 27, 2011.
While I would not get an abortion for myself, I don't think it is right for anyone to tell a woman she is not allowed to get one. If a mother is not in a position to care for a baby, she should not be forced to give birth. I don't think most women take abortion lightly or do not understand what they are doing. This assumes that women are ignorant, which is offensive. Most women who have to make this agonizing choice do so because their situation is so dire. We don't want to go back to the days of unsafe abortions performed by hacks with no medical training.
rrjenn posted at 8:26 pm on Thu, Jan 27, 2011.
Well if it's ok to have abortions at will, at what trimester should we not allow it? Should we even care if the mother delivers the baby in private and kills it herself, or is it ok to partially deliver said baby and allow the doctor to scramble the baby's brain just before delivery so he can say it's a still birth? At what point is it abortion and at what point is it murder? Shouldn't we just allow dear old mum to decide? I think many women are ignorant of just what an abortion really is and what the fetus looks like. Many use abortion as a birth control method at taxpayers expense. Why should my money go for this totally immoral activity. You want us taxpayers to foot the bill? Fine, you get your bloody tubes tied and that's the end of it. If you use abortion as a birth control method, we don't really want you to raise children because you are really very ignorant, and could never in a million years produce a human being capable of contributing in any small way to the betterment of humanity.
rrjenn posted at 8:36 pm on Thu, Jan 27, 2011.
Another thing while we're on it. Nobody has to keep a baby they take to full term. You can always give the baby up for adoption. Could it be that some women who get pregnant just don't want to have the inconvenience of carrying a baby to full term? What a shame to force them into back to the days of unsafe abortions instead they might be inconvenienced by actually paying the price for not being more careful. Scr*w the baby though. What rights does it have. It's just an it you see. Don't even for one second look at IT as a human being. IT'S just an inconvenience that came at a bad time, that can easily be scraped out of my uterus for a nominal fee, and I can go one with my life as though IT never happened. A win win for us all right?
Dale Whiting posted at 1:23 pm on Fri, Jan 28, 2011.
rrjenn,
Homicide has a legal definition as does its more commonly used term, murder. Where both are founded upon the traditional moray against killing, killing is a much broader term. "Thou shalt not kill" now is taken to mean "Thou shalt not murder." Consider that aiming a rifle at an opposing army member and pulling the trigger can result in killing another human being, too.
Having an abortion has never been illegal. One could seek an abortion performed outside of the various state jursidictions where performing an abortion could get a doctor jailed, then return home without fear of prosecution. If you had read Row v. Wade, you would have known this.
The "original intent" of State anti-abortion laws was to protect the health of the mother, there being serious risk of complications under 19th and early 20th century medical proceedures. Prior to the several state's enacting this legislation, abortion was legal and was not thought of as murder!
But as procedures improved outside the US, eventually Jane Doe Row was successful in championing her right to choose an abortion over the state's right to protect her. And there having been no history of prosecuting mothers other than as co-conspirators with doctors, Justice Hugo Blackman who wrote the opinion in Row v Wade, himself a pre-med major before law school, decided to weigh in the balance the woman's right to choose with the emerging right to life, the fulcrum balancing at the beginning of the third trimester, the point in time which was the stage where a fetus was understood to be viable outside the womb. I am surprised that no one has challenged Row v Wade to move this date back. Fetuses are viable at a considerably earlier stage today.
So where you define abortion as an act of homicide, you make a judgement, one similar to mine, and turn it into a moral or values judgment, mixing Church and State. Respecting the need to keep religious/moral judgements out of our laws, yet distaining ending human life, I support both Row v Wade and efforts to reduce the need for women to have to choose. Not only must we seperate Church from State, we must not infringe on our personal obligation under "free agency" to choose what is morally right.
As I recall, Ms. Row did leave the States to get her abortion, and then years later, in hind sight regretted doing so, becoming an outspoken apponent of abortion.
But because taking a case up on appeal took much more than 9 months, one of the unique features of Row v. Wade was allowing Ms. Row to litigate her case long after her abortion had made her appeal mute. Were it otherwise, ie had it been illegal to leave the jurisdiction to get an abortion, nothing unique about permitting her to proceed would have occurred. She would have been the defendant, not the plaintiff.
Aren't you glad you asked!
rrjenn posted at 7:41 pm on Fri, Jan 28, 2011.
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human.[1] A common form of homicide, for example, would be murder. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English. Homicide is not always a punishable act under the criminal law, and is different than a murder from such formal legal point of view. So what. All I get from what you wrote was that you're sorry dear old mum didn't abort you. I know I am.