Arizona Anti-Aborton Law Could Put Doctors In Jail For Years

Posted by | March 23, 2011 11:45 | Filed under: Top Stories


The Arizona Senate voted to make it illegal to have an abortion based on the race or gender of the fetus, and added provisions that would send anyone knowingly involved in such a procedure to jail. It’s already been passed by the Arizona House and is likely to be signed by Governor Jan Brewer. This bill is considered more restrictive than the just-passed South Dakota law, forcing women into anti-abortion counseling and a three-day wait period.

HB 2443 does more than make criminals out of doctors who terminate a pregnancy knowing the woman’s reason is to select the race or gender of the child. It also imposes criminal penalties on anyone who solicits or accepts funds to finance abortions based on race or sex.

Violators would face a presumptive prison term of 3.5 years.

That latter provision is aimed at Planned Parenthood. Proponents of the measure, citing undercover videos, say organization representatives have taken money from individuals interested in limiting births to African American women.

Republicans in Arizona are presenting this as a civil rights measure, as though this is about anti-black discrimination.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, said there is no evidence of gender-based abortion in this country. She said the problem is confined to countries like China where parents generally are limited to a single child, and India where parents worry about the cost of a dowry to marry off a girl.

Think Progress reports:

Arizona’s bill is modeled after U.S. Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) Susan B. Anthony Frederick Douglass Prenatal Discrimination Act, or “Predna” Act, which would insert criminal penalties for race- or sex-based abortions into the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Hoping to “blow a fatal hole in Roe v. Wade,” Franks said that his bill “establishes that unborn children are persons, too.” But Arizona may succeed before Franks gets the chance. The bill is headed to Brewer’s desk possibly by the end of the month and Brewer “has signed every measure restricting abortion that has been sent to her.”

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Copyright 2011 Liberaland
By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.

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