PHOENIX (AP) | Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed what is likely the first legislation in the nation to ban abortions over ethnicity.
The law makes it a Class 3 felony to knowingly perform or provide financing for an abortion sought because of the race or sex of the fetus or a parent’s race. The maximum punishment if convicted is 3 1/2 years in prison.
Supporters said the measure is an important statement against racial discrimination and for life, and follows on campaigns by black pro-lifers, some using images of President Obama, to paint abortion as a form of genocide against black babies. Black women have 30 percent of the nation’s abortions despite blacks being only about 11 percent of the population.
Meanwhile, another abortion restriction continued to progress through a state legislature on the other side of the country, as an Ohio House committee approved a bill that would impose the strictest abortion limit in the nation, outlawing the procedure at the first detectable fetal heartbeat.
Wednesday’s vote by the Health Committee on the Heartbeat Bill was 12-11. The bill would need to be approved by the House, where its future is uncertain.
Democrats said they anticipated a legal fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, while supporters said they would welcome a case that could lead to overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision making abortion a constitutional right.
When the Arizona bill was being debated, supporters said they wanted Arizona to prevent discrimination-based abortions, and they disagreed with opponents over whether there’s evidence that race- and sex-selection-based agendas are actually occurring in Arizona.
Critics said there is no evidence that selective abortions occur in Arizona, and doctors could face jail time if they lose a newly required affidavit that an abortion isn’t for selection purposes.
Planned Parenthood of Arizona said Wednesday it strongly condemns Mrs. Brewer’s decision to sign a bill that Planned Parenthood accused of being specifically designed by abortion opponents to polarize the public at the expense of the health needs of women and families.
“This law creates a highly unusual requirement that women state publicly their reason for choosing to terminate a pregnancy - a private decision they already made with their physician, partner and family,” Bryan Howard, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, said in a statement.
“While we condemn racism and sexism in all forms, legislation that overrides the doctor-patient relationship is not in the best interest of Arizonans,” he said.
The New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which tracks U.S. abortion laws, said the statute is the first to adopt a race-selection ban on abortions.
Illinois, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania already have laws that ban abortion for the purpose of sex selection.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.