Arizona Senate Committee Approves Pro-Life Bills on Abortion, End of Life Issues

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 11, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Arizona Senate Committee Approves Pro-Life Bills on Abortion, End of Life Issues

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 11
, 2009

Phoenix, AZ (LifeNews.com) — Arizona Senate committees on Wednesday provided pro-life advocates with several victories by approving a handful of key bills. The measures will now head to the full Senate for a debate and vote and pro-life advocates hope they will move through the legislative process to pro-life Gov. Jan Brewer.

The Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committee approved a state ban on partial birth abortion (SB 1138), the Abortion Consent Act (SB 1206), and an end of life measure pertaining to the removal of food and fluids (SB 1448).

Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee approved SB 1019 yesterday, which Ron Johnson of the Arizona Catholic Conference says is good news for crisis pregnancy centers and other charitable organizations primarily serving low income people.

"This bill streamlines the charitable organization tax credit by removing the complicated baseline year requirement and providing meaningful accountability to ensure that only legitimate nonprofit organizations qualify," he tells LifeNews.com.

Cathi Herrod, the head of the Center for Arizona Policy, which also supports the pro-life bills, told LifeNews.com more about them.

"The Partial-birth Abortion Ban outlaws this gruesome procedure in our state laws so that local law enforcement can protect preborn babies," she said.

Herrod said the Abortion Consent Act "is designed to clarify and update our abortion statutes to protect women, children, parents, and the civil rights of healthcare workers."

It also "addresses problems with the statute requiring parental consent before a minor girl receives an abortion, requires that women be given full and accurate information and a 24-hour waiting period to consider that information, and protects the conscience rights of healthcare workers."

Herrod says abortion advocates have been flooding legislators with emails "making false claims about the bill’s purpose and intent" and that pro-life advocates need to contact their state lawmakers urging support for these bills.

The state House has already signed off on the package of bills and it passed the partial-birth abortion ban on a 36-19 vote and the omnibus pro-life consent bill 37-19.

Johnson indicated the state House also approved a bill that would streamline the charitable organization tax credit benefiting crisis pregnancy centers. The vote on HB 2286 was 55-1.

With Brewer replacing former pro-abortion Gov. Janet Napolitano, who took an Obama administration position, pro-life groups hope the bills will finally become law.

Related web sites:
Arizona Legislature – https://www.azleg.gov
Arizona Catholic Conference – https://www.azcatholicconference.org
Center for Arizona Policy – https://www.azpolicy.org

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