By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — A reminder that elections have consequences occurred when Arizona’s new Republican governor, Doug Ducey, signed a pro-life bill requiring that doctors tell patients the effects of the “abortion pill” may be reversed if quick action is taken.
It was the first such measure in the nation to become law.
And, on the tax-funding issue, the new law also prohibits plans on Arizona’s federally run health-care exchange from offering coverage for elective abortions.
During the 2014 gubernatorial election here, pro-abortion liberal Democrat Fred DuVal said at a candidate forum that a 14-year-old girl shouldn’t need parental consent for an abortion because the young teenager should be able to exercise her own “reproductive freedom,” without her parents’ agreement.
Critics quickly pointed out various other choices that a 14-year-old isn’t free to make on her own, such as attending an R-rated movie, receiving a vaccination, or taking a school field trip.
Democrat DuVal didn’t look happy about commenting as he did, but presumably the pro-abortion radicals who run the Democrat Party insisted on it. Anyway, the pro-abortion news media here ignored DuVal’s remarkably embarrassing remarks for a week, until word emerged after the news spread on conservative websites around the nation.
His Republican foe, Ducey, the Arizona state treasurer, ran for governor as a pro-lifer and easily defeated DuVal.
Arizona conservative Republican political consultant Constantin Querard told The Wanderer that he doubted anyone was surprised Ducey, being true to his campaign pledge, signed such “commonsense” legislation on March 30.
However, the pro-abortion media establishment reacted with a typical propaganda frenzy, from the state’s largest daily, The Arizona Republic, to The New York Times.
In his April 1 spin-heavy story atop the Times’ “National” news main page, writer Rick Rojas twisted the tale to say that telling women drug-induced abortions may be reversible is “an assertion that most doctors say is wrong.”
Political consultant Querard told The Wanderer that “anyone who has watched Arizona over the last six to eight years isn’t surprised when Arizona leads the way nationally, as it apparently has on the medication advisory [abortion] legislation.
“Overall, Arizona is one of the most pro-life states in the country in terms of legislative progress, so it will be interesting to see how many more ‘small steps’ can be taken before we bump up against a revisitation of Roe v. Wade,” the Supreme Court’s national imposition of permissive abortion in 1973, Querard said.
“In the meantime, it is good to see that our elected officials are doing what they can to protect innocent human life.”
At the Arizona capitol, Ann Dockendorff, the governor’s senior press secretary, told The Wanderer on April 6 that the measure he signed “provides needed clarification to longstanding state law. It prevents taxpayer-funded abortions while also ensuring that women have as much information as possible when making an important medical and life decision.”
In a March 30 statement, the socially conservative Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) hailed Ducey’s action, saying, “Arizona becomes the first state in the nation to enact an informed-consent provision that guarantees women who are seeking abortions are told it may be possible to reverse the effects of the abortion pill, but time is of the essence.
“The provision will protect women like the one who recently returned to a Glendale [Ariz.] Planned Parenthood office after receiving the first abortion pill to see if she could stop the effects of the deadly medication,” the CAP statement continued.
“Planned Parenthood’s staff misinformed her when they said there was nothing she could do to stop the abortion.
“Thankfully, the young woman got connected to Dr. Allan Sawyer through the website AbortionPillReversal.com. Dr. Sawyer began the woman on the abortion-pill reversal regimen, and today has a healthy ongoing pregnancy,” CAP said.
“SB 1318 also ensures taxpayer dollars do not go to the abortion industry by prohibiting medical plans on Arizona’s federally run health-care exchange from offering coverage for elective abortion,” CAP said. “The legislation also requires abortion clinics to provide verification to the state that their doctors have proper admitting privileges to Arizona hospitals as prescribed by law as well.”
The abortion-pill reversal website says it’s “a program of Culture of Life Family Services, headquartered in San Diego, Calif. The APR program has a network of over 270 physicians worldwide to assist women that call our hotline. This hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by one of our medical professionals.”
The hotline number is 877-558-0333.
Looking For An Answer
Rebekah Buell, a California woman who had an abortion-pill reversal at age 18 in 2013, was one of the speakers at this year’s Walk for Life West Coast rally, in San Francisco on January 24.
The Wanderer interviewed Buell and reported her story in its February 5 issue, along with coverage of the San Francisco rally.
Buell said she immediately regretted taking the RU 486 abortion pill at Sacramento Planned Parenthood and started looking for an answer on her iPhone in the parking lot. This put her in touch with the Culture of Life Family Services, which arranged for the reversal injections to begin the next morning.
After six weeks of injections, Buell said, she was tested and told she had a normal pregnancy, followed by the successful birth of son Zechariah.
On April 3, the pro-life Live Action News posted a story by blogger Cassy Fiano headlined, “Not medical theater but reality: why abortion reversal angers abortion backers.” Fiano wrote:
“Women should never be lied to or pressured into having an abortion, yet it happens with alarming regularity. So it makes sense for laws to be passed ensuring women are given accurate information — otherwise, how can a woman truly obtain informed consent? The latest instance of this is a new bill introduced in Arizona, in which abortionists will be required to tell women that a chemical abortion could be reversible. Naturally, this has the pro-abortion lobby furious. . . .
“The simple fact is that women can and do regret their abortions,” Fiano continued. “It is certainly not a universal response to having an abortion, but it’s wrong to pretend that it never happens simply because it’s inconvenient to the pro-abortion movement. Even more inconvenient is the fact that abortion reversal actually is not ‘quackery,’ but a legitimate medical procedure.”
The liberal Democratic “Blog for Arizona” said the bill passed the Arizona House “on a 33-24 party-line vote.” Among the last names of Democrat state representatives voting against the bill were Andrade, Cardenas, Gonzales, Rios, Saldate, Espinoza, Fernandez, Gabaldon, Mendez, and Velasquez.
The Arizona Catholic Conference, the bishops’ lobbying arm, stays busy promoting massive illegal immigration, but apparently failed to convince these Arizona Democrat politicians to fulfill their moral obligations.
Republican House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro, a legal immigrant, voted for the bill, as did Democratic State Sen. Catherine Miranda.
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