“You used to be either pro-choice or anti-abortion; now you are pro-choice or pro-life” ~Lewis Black in God We Rust, 2012.

Arizona is becoming a testing ground for lots of bizarro conservative think-tank legislation. This is a hard push to change the policies we care about. The reason for this hard push is that for according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, for voters 49 years and younger there is a sharp upswing in support for some form of legalized abortion services. Therefore, socially conservative groups have a finite amount of time before their influence on reproductive rights will be essentially over. But you should know what they are up to.

2012 Legislation:

AZ SB1009: The state has a strong interest to promote childbirth and adoption over  elective abortion, therefore no school may provide information that does not also provide preferential instructional or materials that also present a preference for childbirth or adoption; and school are not required to provide medically accurate information either.

AZ HB2036: 20 week abortion ban dated to first day of last period = which is actually aprox. 18 weeks. Requires an ultraSound 24 hrs prior to Elective Abortion. That the provider must Post Signage and read a Script (including illustrations) to be written by ADHS & State Legislators coz they know so damn much about medicine and treatment. Additionally modifies the definition of abortion to include medicinal abortion (such as RU486) as a *surgical* procedure and regulates that follow-up *surgical recovery-room* care is required of all abortion procedures.  The law also provides for legal remedy (aka: lawsuit) by the father of the unborn child if the father is married to the mother at the time she received the abortion and/or the maternal grandparents because a women’s reproductive capability is the property of her husband or parents, right?!

AZ HB2625: ANY Employer may opt-out of providing birth control coverage on their insurance plans if they have a moral objection; employees MUST provide in writing to their employer, medical records proving that they take birth control for a medically necessary reason, not having to do with preventing child-bearing

AZ HB2627: Charitable donations may not go to organizations that provide, promote, refer, or fund, abortion services.

AZ HB2800: DeFund Planned Parenthood from receiving donation-funding for lifesaving well-woman medical testing that are also unrelated to abortion services.

AZ SB1359: Your doctor can lie to you and bans anyone in the state from filing a “wrongful cause of life” lawsuit against doctors who fail to disclose or diagnose birth defects in preborn children that might lead to a medically necessary and legal abortion option.

AZ SB1360: Human Eggs are really Human Gamettes and can be aborted if you feel like you have too many and even though conception is the same as a ‘baby.’

AZ SB1361: In Vitro and likelihood that selective reduction (abortion) might be recommended, along with an explanation and associated risks to mother and child; information on embryo conception, transfer, and number of embryos needed for successful pregnancy as well as the patient’s right to determine the number of embryos or oocytes to conceive and transfer; so you can kill that ‘baby’ before implantation in the womb, but not after?!

If you are wondering after reading this how much worse it could get, please don’t.  Work like hell to turn back this tide of crazy and woman hating kind of ugliness.  The 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade closely coincides with the opening day at our state legislative 2013 session and they are gearing up for a doozy!