Arizona GOP Governor Doug Ducey signed a extremely controversial bill Monday that prohibits women in his state from buying insurance that includes abortion coverage through the federal healthcare exchange. In addition, the bill Ducey signed also requires doctors to tell women they could possibly reverse the effects of a drug-induced abortion. Critics of the bill claim that provision is based on “junk science.”
Ducey, in statement which merely repeated the usual Republican talking points on the issue of choice said:
“The American people overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, and it’s no different in Arizona, where we have long-standing policy against subsidizing them with public dollars. This legislation provides clarity to state law.”
The only clarity provided by the legislation is in reaffirming what we already knew: the GOP has not, does not, and will not ever believe that a woman’s body and her reproductive decisions are hers alone. Instead, they will continue to mandate when and where the government may stick its probing and unwelcome snout.
Ducey’s move is just the latest by the GOP in their never-ending attempt to strip away the most basic and fundamental privacy rights of women across the country.
In Alabama, a law was passed which appoints attorneys to argue for the rights of fetuses when a woman seeks to have an abortion.
Additionally, Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma have instituted measures similar to the Arizona bill which is know in the parlance as “abortion reversal.” That part of the legislation requires doctors to inform their patients that they could possibly reverse an abortion mid-procedure. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says there is absolutely no evidence for such a thing. Dr. Ilana Addis told a legislative committee in Arizona:
“We like to practice medicine that is evidenced based and unfortunately the protocol that has been suggested for reversing a medication abortion has no evidence to support it.”
But since when have Republicans bothered to heed the evidence provided by the scientific community? They deny climate change is real, scoff at global warming, and now want to pretend they have the best interests of women at heart.
If they did want to help women, they would stop trying to legislate what half the population can do with their bodies.
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica,org.