Arizona may be in line to be the seventh state in the nation to ban abortions at 20 weeks.
On a 37-22 margin Tuesday, the House approved the legislation to scrap existing law which says pregnancies can be terminated until the point of viability. That is generally considered to be in the 22-23 week range.
Rep. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix, said she would just as soon ban all abortions outright. But Yee said that, at the very least, there is evidence the current cutoff is too late.
“The medical evidence is clear that the pre-born child has developed pain sensors on their face in the seventh week of life,” she told colleagues.
“By the 20th week of life, sensory receptors have developed all over the preborn baby’s body,” Yee continued. “The densities of these receptors are the same, if not higher, than that of an adult.”
Rep. Eric Meyer, D-Paradise Valley, responded that the question of when a fetus can feel pain is not medically settled.
Meyer who is a doctor, said HB 2036 ignores the fact that some fetal anomalies cannot be detected and fully diagnosed until the 20th week of pregnancy. He said while the law does allow an abortion after that point if the woman’s life is in danger, there is no exception for the balance of the pregnancy for maternal health or even if it is clear the fetus lacks a brain or kidneys and cannot live.
“To force a woman to carry a fetus that has anomalies that are not compatible with life for (another) 20 weeks isn’t a decision we should be making here at the Legislature,” he said. “That’s decision for that woman to make with their physician and their family.”
With the Senate already having approved the measure, the bill now goes to Gov. Jan Brewer who has until early next week to decide what to do.
She generally does not comment on legislation until she actually signs or vetoes it. But Brewer is on record as wanting to ban all abortions except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. “Gov. Brewer has a strong and consistent pro-life record and will be studying this legislation closely before announcing her decision,” said Matthew Benson, her press aide.
The legislation, if signed, would make it a misdemeanor to abort a child at or after 20 weeks except in a medical emergency. Violators could be sent to jail for up to six months and have their medical licenses suspended or revoked.
The hour-long House debate often turned emotional as some lawmakers related their own experiences.
Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, detailed how he has been watching his wife’s pregnancy. He said the baby is now 29 weeks along and clearly reacts to external stimuli.
`To say that we can murder these babies after 20 weeks is unconscionable,” he said.
Inherent in the discussion was the question of birth defects and whether that should be grounds for allowing a woman to terminate a pregnancy.
Rep. Terri Proud, R-Tucson, detailed how her youngest child was diagnosed with a fatal lung disease. The child is still alive.
“It has been one of the most difficult things I have ever experienced in my life,” she said.
“But let me tell you the beauty of having her,” Proud continued. “I truly believe that God gave me a new set of eyes that day when she was diagnosed.”
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, read a news story about how a baby born after just 21 weeks had survived and was about to be released from the hospital. He said there is no consensus on exactly when a fetus can survive on its own.
“If you’re going to err, you err on the side of life,” he said.
And House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, said the issue is simple for him.
“Little people feel pain,” he said. “Little people are alive.”
Foes of the legislation focused largely on the question of whether the state should interfere in what they say should be a private -- and can be a difficult -- decision.
Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa, said some initial sonorgrams to spot for birth defects cannot be run before 18 weeks into the pregnancy. And the genetic tests for confirmation, he said, have to be sent to an out-of-state laboratory, with the results taking up to 10 days.
That, he said, puts women who get back those results in a bind.
“They should be given time to make that decision,” he said.
“This is a decision not for the Legislature,” Ash continued. “It is a decision that shouldn’t be rushed by legislative mandate.”
But Rep. Peggy Judd, R-Willcox, argued that maybe that 20-week cutoff will encourage more pregnant women to get early prenatal care and tests. And Judd said she is undisturbed by the possibility of the new deadline resulting in more children born with defects.
“These special infants that come into our homes give us a unique opportunity to learn selfless love and they teach us to serve our fellow men,” she said.
“We must not seek to remove these children from our lives,” Judd continued. “The opportunity to care for, raise and teach these special children who are literally angels among us may be the last bastion we have in our society for this kind of love learning.”
House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, told his colleagues that if they are so willing to deal with children with health problems they should restore the funding for programs for the developmentally disabled and KidsCare which provides health care for the children of the working poor. But Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, said it was “nonsensical” to say that cuts in state spending should mean Arizona should permit more abortions to occur.
In a prepared statement, Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood Arizona, said this bill is part of an “unprecedented attack on Arizona women and their health care.”
chatmandu002 posted at 4:00 pm on Tue, Apr 10, 2012.
Get the government out of the womb. There is a reason they call it a birthday.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 4:55 pm on Tue, Apr 10, 2012.
Human Rights Regulations and guidelines were put into place and codified after the horrible spector of the Holocaust was finally shown to the World after World War II.
6,000,000 Jews, Slavs, homosexuals, mentally retarded and Gypsies were deemed as ...."UNTERMENSCHEN" (sub-humans in English) by the Nazis and put to death.
Well, 6,000,000 human fetuses have been ....'ABORTED"...in the United States alone since the 1970's and the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision. The...."Femi-Nazi's" and their Liberal-Socialist-Democrat....camp-followers...have no regard for human life so that is why Conservatives and Republicans have to step in and initiate Laws to protect the .......un-born.
When a woman drives a car...she makes sure that there is gas in the tank...the tires are inflated...the headlights, tail-lights and brake lights are working...........but you are telling me that these same women can not ask their hetero-sexual partner to wear a condom or they themselves can not remember to take the "pill" or use an "anti-pregnancy" device. I remember when condoms were sold in restrooms for a quarter (25cents)....the are probably a dollar ($1) in today's money. Is a $1 to great a cost to bear for ..."pregnancy-free" sex these days..........one lousy ....DOLLAR ???
Championvilla posted at 9:53 pm on Tue, Apr 10, 2012.
I do not agree on getting an abortion just because it is inconvenient to have a child, but the option needs to be out there for women who need it for medical reasons. A women should not be forced to carry a dead fetus inside her until she gives birth to it, nor should she have to carry it if it is going to die almost as soon as it is born. It is unfair to the woman, and the baby.
8% of women having abortions have never used a method of birth control (AGI).
Only 8 %... so the rest were using the condoms you are referring to.
For all the people saying the women should pay for it themselves, and not the government..
"The U.S. Congress has barred the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions, except when the woman's life would be endangered by a full-term pregnancy or in cases of rape or incest (AGI). "
http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/
Reasons to have a late term abortion, which would not be allowed with this law.
Trisomy 21: Down Syndrome
Trisomy 13 & 18: mental retardation, 90 percent of babies born with it die before the age of 1.
Anencephaly: a severe head disorder, occurs when the head end of the neural tube fails to close, absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp. Children with this disorder are born without a forebrain, the largest part of the brain. The remaining brain tissue is often exposed—not covered by bone or skin.
Polycystic Kidney Disease: cysts on the babies kidney. It takes many years for this to cause the kidneys to fail and can be treated with dialysis or kidney transplantation. 600,000 people in the U.S. are living with PKD.
Spina Bifida: the most common permanently disabling birth defect in the U.S. The spine of the baby fails to close, he or she won’t be able to walk. 70,000 people in the U.S. are living with SB.
Hydrocephalus: there is an excessive amount of fluid in the brain. Infants experience vomiting, large head size, sleepiness, irritability, downward deviation of the eyes (“sunsetting”) and seizures. Older children and adults may experience different symptoms such as, headache followed by vomiting, nausea, papilledema (swelling of the optic disk which is part of the optic nerve), blurred or double vision, sunsetting, problems with balance, poor coordination, gait disturbance, urinary incontinence, slowing or loss of developmental progress, lethargy, drowsiness, irritability, or other changes in personality or cognition including memory loss. Hydrocephalus is very treatable.
Potter’s Syndrome: there is a total absence or malformation of infant kidneys. Vast majority of babies die at birth or shortly afterwards.
Lethal Dwarfism: this is very rare. Some symptoms are a large head, wide front fontanel, corneal clouding, closed off ear canals, and very short arms. Nearly half of the babies that have this die before they’re born.
Holoprosencephaly: In most cases, the brain does not divide into lobes, which severely deforms the skull and face. Sometimes the brain is partially or nearly divided, making the symptoms much less severe. In the absolute worst cases, the baby dies in the womb.
Anterior and Posterior Encephalocele: this complication leads to chromosomal anomaly, most common anomaly being Trisomy 18. Patients with an anterior encephalocele have a 100% survival rate, but only 55% in persons with a posterior encephalocele. Encephalocele reduces the chance of live birth to 21%, and only half of those live births survive. Approximately 75% of survivors have a mental deficit. The absence of brain tissue in the herniated sac is the single most favorable prognostic feature for survival.
Non-Immune Hydrops: Excess of extra-cellular fluid in two or more sites without any identifiable circulating antibody to red cell antigens. There are treatments to perform while the baby is still in the womb, however the prognosis is generally very poor with very high peri-natal mortality.
http://prustice.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/medical-reasons-for-late-term-abortions/
To be clear, I do not agree with abortion for the sake of just getting one, but I do not agree that the government should be saying that it should or should not be done. I am not a loose woman, I am married, my husband is my only partner, and has always been, I do not wear low cut shirts and above the thigh skirts, so do not even insult me by saying so. If your wife wanted to get an abortion because the baby was going to die anyways, would you really force her to keep it in her womb until she gives birth because " pigs and cows do it" ?
DrJCA1 posted at 10:34 am on Wed, Apr 11, 2012.
The entire abortion debate aside, the issue of feeling pain is totally another matter. Pain is a subjective complaint from another person. It is not a symptom that others can determine if it's there, like a rash or broken bone. To say that developing embryos or fetuses can feel pain is absurd, and anyone in the medical community who says otherwise is just playing the "this is what I beleive, so it's right" game and is 100% speculative in nature. While someone may withdraw their hand in response to a stimulus, unless they tell you it hurt, you can only assume the stimulus was "painful", not ticklish, annoying, too warm or cold, or simply uncomfortable.
Juggernaut8000 posted at 4:29 pm on Wed, Apr 11, 2012.
This is the doing of the gullible religious fools who cannot keep their noses out of other people's business.
Do you pro-life morons know that we as humans are not exaclty an endangered species and having a baby that the mother didn't want to have anyways is counterproductive to a better society.
Dale Whiting posted at 5:45 pm on Wed, Apr 11, 2012.
Question?
Where an anomily might not be detedted as early as the 20th month, but is detected before the third trimester [month 26] such that an abortion under Roe v. Wade would be legal but this state law prevents doctors from risking doing so, would the mother have a civil action against the State for both emotional pain and suffering as well as making the state foot the bill for the costs of keeping the child until its natural death?
Put me on the jury and I'd say YES! Would I bring that claim? NO.
samkat posted at 5:46 pm on Wed, Apr 11, 2012.
Leon: Please pedal your Catholic tripe elsewhere. Now, if you are so concerned, we have over 11,000 unwanted children languishing in CPS custody looking for a loving home. Rather than following the mass of pro lifers who seem to think responsibility for these child ends when they exit the womb, follow up on your convictions and adopt one or more. Sadly, it seems that the pro lifers are only interested in adopting new borns and the older children are considered undesirable in their eyes.