Republican legislators want a Texas-like anti-abortion vigilante law for Arizona - The Arizona Republic
Opinion: Zealots aren't content with the already draconian laws our state already has. They want to duplicate the worst in the country.
Once the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a Texas anti-abortion vigilante law to go into effect you just KNEW Republican lawmakers in Arizona would piggyback on the repulsiveness.
And, of course, they did.
Among the latest attacks on women’s health care to come out of the Legislature is House Bill 2483, which the sponsors call the “Arizona Heartbeat Act.” A strange title given the heartlessness of the proposal and the fact that, technically, the fetuses they are supposedly protecting do not yet possess a functioning heart.
Like the Texas legislation, this bill would ban abortions after what they describe as a fetal heartbeat, or about six weeks.
Most women don’t even know they’re pregnant at that stage.
Turn loose the abortion bounty hunters
In addition, the bill would fine doctors $10,000 for any abortion they perform and would allow anti-abortion vigilantes to file lawsuits, also worth $10,000, against anyone who helps a women receive the procedure.
The only exception is if a doctor can prove the abortion was necessary to save the woman’s life.
It’s not like Arizona doesn’t already have its share of ruthless and draconian anti-abortion laws, some of which the courts put on hold but will go into effect if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which could happen relatively soon.
As for that notion of a heartbeat, Dr. Nisha Verma, who works at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, described it this way.
She told NPR, “At six weeks of gestation, those valves don’t exist. The flickering that we’re seeing on the ultrasound that early in the development of the pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound that you ‘hear’ is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine.”
The fanatics would call that a technicality.
That part about rape, incest and profit
With any luck, the bill will not see the light of day.
If it does, however, it could be pointed out that HB 2483 does include one restriction on who is permitted to rat someone out for the ten grand.
The bill says, “Notwithstanding any other law, a civil action under this section may not be brought by a person who impregnated the abortion patient through an act of sexual assault or incest … .”
In other words, a rapist can’t sue a doctor for performing an abortion on the female he raped.
But if he passes the tip on to a pal … .
Reach Montini at [email protected].
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source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2022/02/02/arizona-republicans-want-texas-anti-abortion-vigilante-law/9309269002/
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