Alliance Defending Freedom update: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has decided to temporarily prevent implementation of Arizona H.B. 2036
To protect mothers as well as their preborn children, Arizona lawmakers passed H.B. 2036—a bill banning elective abortions after 20 weeks.
Although the legislation was aptly titled “The Mother’s Health and Safety Act,” the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights sued to block its implementation. But a federal judge just ruled for mothers, and as a result, the law will take effect in Arizona.
Arizona now joins Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, all of which already have bans on abortion after 20 weeks in place. And these complement 20 other states that have bans on abortion after 12 weeks.
These 27 states notwithstanding, the Center for Reproductive Rights responded to the judgment in favor of H.B. 2036 with the usual distorted rancor: “The federal judge overseeing the Center for Reproductive Rights’ case denied our request to block the most extreme abortion ban in the country.”
Again, there is literally no way “The Mother’s Health and Safety Act” can be “the most extreme abortion ban in the country,” as 20 other states have bans that start at 12 weeks instead of 20.
But I suppose the CRR would prefer not let the facts get in the way.
CRR added that the judgment in favor of H.B. 2036 “green lights an unconstitutional law banning pre-viability abortions—with almost no exceptions. A woman facing devastating complications in her pregnancy will have to risk her health and well-being unless she is facing a life-threatening emergency.”
Of course, this is just about par for the course from an abortion advocacy group like CRR—the scare tactics about the terror women will now face because of the terror they cannot unleash on their preborn children is placed front and center, not to mention that CRR completely ignores the terror women themselves face after having a late-term abortion.
Yet the truth is demonstrably at odds with the claims of the Center for Reproductive Rights: “The medical evidence presented during committee hearings make it clear that abortions after 20 weeks present a much greater risk to the life of the women. There is also substantial medical evidence that preborn children can feel pain at this age.” The court agreed.
But this won’t matter to those for whom abortion is sacrosanct.
To them, consequences of abortion matter far less than access to abortion. It’s got to be abortion every day, all the time, or it’s simply not acceptable.
Thank God Gov. Jan Brewer and the Arizona Legislature have taken the consequences into account and decided the threat to both mother and child is too great to be ignored.
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