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Subscribe to RSSPHOENIX -- Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed into law on Thursday a controversial bill that bans most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, giving Republicans a win in ongoing national efforts to impose greater restrictions on abortion.
The measure, which state lawmakers gave a final nod to on Tuesday, would bar healthcare professionals from performing abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, except in the case of a medical emergency. Only a small number of these abortions are performed in the state.
With Brewer's signature, Arizona joins six other states that have put similar late-term abortion bans in place in the past two years based on hotly debated medical research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation.
Georgia lawmakers approved a similar bill in March that now awaits the signature of Republican Governor Nathan Deal.
Late-term abortions will still be allowed in Arizona in situations where continuing a pregnancy risks death or would "create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function." This is to be determined by a physician's "good faith clinical judgment."
The law also requires a woman to have an ultrasound at least 24 hours prior to having an abortion, instead of the one hour previously mandated under state law.
State officials are required to create a website that details such items as the risks of the procedure and shows pictures of the fetus in various stages.
The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortions nationwide in 1973 but allowed states to ban the procedure after the time when the fetus could potentially survive outside the womb, except where a woman's health was at risk.
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While I agree with AZ's law to combat the criminals invading the United States (illegal aliens) I strongly oppose this bull@!$%# anti-abortion law so praised by the theocrats who would love to make the United States a Theocracy. This law has no scientific basis, instead it is part of the hypocritical right-to-life @!$%#s movement who only care about the "life" until it is born and then quickly disappear into the scum from which they came.
dI assume, of course, that all of these anti-abortion activists are in favor of the morning after pill, to prevent late term abortion? NOT!!!
We are truly in the end days - of the Republican party.
To those who feel life doesn't begin, and rights aren't enforced until birth, this law is awful. To those who believe life begins at conception and rights begin as well, this law is just. Womens rights or patricide? The war over the unborn continues.
"Conception" isn't a medical term, nor is "unborn." If all you have is rhetoric, your side will continue losing public support, kiddo.
Abortion in what ever disguise is killing and should be known and treated as such. The mother or would be mother who allows it, commits murder. The father or would be father who allows it commits, murder. The doctors and nurses who participate directly or indirectly in the termination of the life they cannot create, commit murder. The law makers who propose, support and pass the laws in favor of it, commits murder. The executive who signs the bills into law allowing it to happen, commits murder. The judge who legalizes it with his rulings and pronouncements, commits murder. If because the mundane laws are in your hands and you are therefore not held accountable for these murders by these laws, the eternal laws will hold you accountable for them. But you must remember your deeds when the eternal laws hold you accountable. Do not then pretend ignorance or injustice for you would only be paid back in own coins even if the coins appear in different colors than what you are used to.
please stop trying to make God the biggest abortionist of them all.
I have a great law that will fix all of this. I'll call it the "Keep your legs closed" law. If you are a female that does not want or can not otherwise afford to have a child and you participate in a sexual act, you will spend the next 40 weeks carrying a child that you created "by accident" while you exercised your freedom of choice. You will spend the rest of your life paying for this child and it's care even if you do not wish to retain (or are deemed unfit to retain) custody of the child itself. Make them pay child support to the state if they decide to give it up for adoption, go after the father's too. No need to limit the responsibility to only one half of the guilty party.
that means if your married but not ready for a baby no sex, once you have your two kids to sex for you.
If this isn't sarcasm I question your sanity...
if your it was your fathers or uncle's to bad if you were raped to bad, if your going to die to bad.
just a note we are at seven billion people and growing, and we are running into to resource/environmental problems already from industrial systems we have created. So a real conversation needs to be happening to solve those problems. Environmental problems are causing every increasing birth defects and children who will have health problems for the rest of their lives. Are schools are a joke. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/7-billion#.T4JqVhn4xiA.facebook.
I do not hold to that life begins at conception based on the bible and I certainly am not going to make God the biggest abortionist by claiming such a thing.
You say "No need to limit the responsibility to only one half of the guilty party" but I like how your law is called "keep your legs closed", obviously meaning women are the mostly-responsible party. For you anti-choice people, pregnancy and childbirth is punishment for women for having sex. Men? That's just what they do, right?
Why is it punishment for people to be held responsible for the choices they make? Yes i called it "keep your legs closed" if you aren't ready for kids you should be taking every, i mean every, precaution to not become pregnant. If that means being celibate because you don't believe in birth control then so be it.
Tao of wow- I left out those scenarios. i only mentioned "casual sex" choices, not violations of women.
I thought Roe v Wade covered the first trimester(12 weeks). How did we get to more than 20 weeks?
Roe v Wade originally had a trimester boundary, but the court later rejected it and put in a clause on "viability", which is generally considered to occur between 24 and 28 weeks.
Here is more garbage that we citizens must fight against in our state of Arizona:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/04/12/20120412ariz-senate-oks-bill-guns-public-buildings.html
This is the perfect storm. The apostate religious right using religion to take down our democracy, and the neo nazi gun rights group unite.