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There are several abortion bills making their way through the Arizona Legislature at the moment. None of them seem to make a whole lot of sense, considering the other, more-pressing issues the state currently faces (namely a pesky $2 billion budget shortfall), but one in particular has pro-choice advocates livid.
Aside from forcing abortion doctors to offer patients the opportunity to look at ultrasound images of the fetus — a move to basically try to scare women out of having an abortion — HB 2416 also adds stiffer regulations to the early abortion-by-pill that would subject the medication to the same regulations as surgical abortion.
Doing so, officials from Planned Parenthood say, would block access of early-term abortions to women living in rural communities.
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The group says that by preventing early-term abortions by over-regulating the pill, it will lead to more late-term, potentially riskier abortions.
This morning, Planned Parenthood Arizona doctors testified at a hearing regarding the bill in the state House of Representatives. They were not impressed.
“Sitting in the committee hearing, I was saddened by the ignorance displayed by the people who are supposed to represent the needs of Arizonans,” Bryan Howard, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Arizona, says. “Legislators are dismissing Arizona women, and more specifically those women who live in rural communities, in order to push forward an agenda set by their beliefs and those of bloated lobbying interests.”
Click here and here to read about some of the other anti-abortion nonsense your elected officials have been working on.
