Abortion bill voted down

Republican state Sen. Tyler Pace of Mesa broke with his party to block a controversial measure that would have criminalized certain abortions.

A Republican senator broke with his party on Wednesday to block a controversial measure that would have criminalized abortions based on genetic abnormalities and extended personhood “rights, privileges and immunities” to fetuses at any stage of development.

Given the slim margins in the Arizona Senate, the “no” vote from Sen. Tyler Pace, R-Mesa, was enough to sink the sweeping Senate Bill 1457 just before it landed on Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk.

“I pride myself on trying to make our bills better, so long as I can stomach or support the underlying issue,” Pace said. “In all honesty with you, that’s what’s made this bill so hard. … I’m not supportive of abortion in many of its ways. But I get very hesitant when we get into the specifics like this, especially in health care.”

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, would have made it a class 6 felony to perform an abortion sought based on genetic conditions such as Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis. It would have hit medical professionals who failed to report such abortions with a fine of up to $10,000.

Proponents of Senate Bill 1457 insisted the legislation would protect Arizona’s most vulnerable. But opponents noted disability rights groups had not backed the measure, accusing the bill’s supporters of using people with disabilities as pawns.

In addition to the genetic abnormality provisions, the bill would have prohibited public educational institutions from performing abortions unless the procedure was necessary to save a woman’s life, and prevented public money from supporting research involving abortions or embryo transfers.

It also would have forbidden the mailing or delivery of abortioninducing drugs, which doctors also use to manage miscarriages, and required fetal remains to be buried or cremated.

Finally, it would have mandated that medical facilities that perform abortions submit paperwork to the state detailing, for each termination, whether the facility had detected a a genetic abnormality and how officials had disposed of the remains.

Senate Bill 1457 was one of two major anti-abortion proposals in play heading into this week. Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, opted not to put the other — House Bill 2140, which sought to ban abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy — up for a floor vote. That all but doomed its prospects.

So far, just one of the dozen or so

abortion-related measures put forward by the GOP this year has made it across the finish line, though proposals could resurface as part of budget negotiations.

The resolution that passed urged Congress to act on federal legislation and didn’t create a new law in the state.

Opponents concerned about threat of prosecution

House Republicans had amended SB 1457 to exempt abortions performed based on “severe fetal abnormalities” to boost its chances in the Senate, defining such an abnormality as “a life-threatening physical condition that, in reasonable medical judgement, regardless of the provision of life-saving medical treatment, is incompatible with life.”

But Pace worried the exemption, as written, still fell short.

If a medical provider were prosecuted over an abortion under SB 1457, he said, “a jury would have to determine what medical judgment was reasonable.”

“We are asking a panel of lay individuals to determine medical judgment, to play the board of medicine,” he said. “That’s a large reach.”

The general threat of criminalization had prompted various OB-GYNs to come forward in the months since Barto proposed the bill, testifying that they would be afraid of providing pregnant patients comprehensive information about their choices.

Other provisions also proved contentious, with the personhood element in particular rankling several Arizona faith leaders. In a joint letter opposing the measure penned by Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman, those leaders said there is no consensus on when life begins and argued that “one group’s interpretation of scripture or personal beliefs, no matter how strongly held, should not be legislated over others.”

Rep. Kelli Butler, D-Phoenix, had fought the provision banning delivery of abortion-inducing drugs, calling it “horrible” given its potential impact on women grappling with miscarriages.

Rep. Athena Salman, D-Tempe, had contended giving fetuses equal rights would jeopardize the ability of individuals and couples to pursue in vitro fertilization in Arizona.

And Rep. Daniel Hernandez, D-Tucson, charged GOP leaders with caring only about protecting children with disabilities until they were born.

Bill sponsor: Measure good for women, babies

Barto, the bill’s sponsor, called many of those arguments “myths” after the measure failed in the Senate on Wednesday. She asked senators who had voted against the measure to reconsider. Noting that Arizona already had outlawed abortions based on race or sex, she said those with genetic abnormalities deserved the same level of protection.

“Almost 100% of (fetuses) with Down syndrome in Iceland never see the light of day” because women choose to terminate those pregnancies, she said. “Here in the United States, we’re getting there.”

Barto also maintained that requiring burial or cremation of fetal remains would “give value to the unborn,” and highlighted the provision banning delivery of abortion medication as an effort to ensure women were “not left on their own.”

Rep. Regina Cobb, R-Kingman, had used a similar rationale in the House last week, citing the dangers of ectopic pregnancies, which involve fertilized eggs growing outside the uterus and can cause life-threatening bleeding.

Requiring an in-person appointment prior to receiving abortion medication would bolster the doctor-patient relationship, Cobb said, not diminish it.

Barto ultimately vowed to revive the bill in her remarks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, saying it contained “so many things” that “honor the unborn.”

“Being a pro-life legislator, being elected on that basis that we would honor life, that we protect women, protect the vulnerable — I’m disappointed that we don’t see every vote a green (yes) today,” she said.

Prominent anti-abortion advocate Cathi Herrod, whose Center for Arizona Policy had lobbied for SB 1457’s passage, similarly promised to keep pushing for the bill’s central provisions.

“The effort to pass pro-life legislation in Arizona is far from over,” she wrote on Twitter. “Today’s shortage of votes to pass SB 1457 is disappointing. We will continue to work to get the truth out about the need for 1457.”