More Articles on HB2625

On March 30, 2012 Trustwomen.com said: A bill in Arizona, HB 2625, which would have allowed employers to question their employees about contraception use and refuse to provide coverage for contraception was voted down. But, there will be another vote on the bill because Republicans said they are still concerned about employers’ religious freedom. The bill as originally written would allow employers to fire their employees for using contraception for non-medical purposes – and further allow employers to question their employees on medical history, making the employees justify their use of contraception. This bill has drawn some media attention for being clearly invasive. Senator John McCain of Arizona was direct in his disapproval of the bill. He suggested that Republicans “get off of that issue”. Maybe the Senator recognizes the danger in focusing on an aspect of the population’s lives that has become so vital and one that should remain a private decision. The bill is another politicized attempt at bringing religious freedom into a debate – insinuating that the religious freedom of entities and people in positions of power (like pharmacists, employers and religious leaders) is more important than the freedoms (religious or otherwise) of other individuals. Legislators would need two more “Yes” votes to pass this bill when it comes up for a vote again next. However, that’s not the only anti-choice bill the Arizona legislature is considering. Even though it voted down HB 2625, the Arizona Senate voted “Yes” on another bill that would require the state to host a website with photos of fetuses at different stages of development. And, even more problematic, the bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks. A similar bill in Georgia banning abortion after 20 weeks gestation failed because Republicans were insistent that there be no exceptions. This means that women would even have to carry non-viable fetuses to term. This means that a woman would be forced to miscarry and deliver a still birth. Luckily it was clear the bill was infringing on women’s health and rights to an extreme extent. And in this clarity, it died. (This was the bill that a representative defended by arguing that since livestock like cattle carry stillborn fetuses to term, women should too.) Arizona’s bill in comparison to Georgia’s seems to be squeaking by. What is particularly awful about this bill is that it counts the beginning of pregnancy at the beginning of the woman’s last menstrual cycle. And, because the woman is unlikely to become pregnant until a week after menstruation ends, this means that the bill actually makes abortion illegal after approximately 18 weeks. This bill makes it perfectly evident how willing Republican leaders are to completely dismiss basic biology in their politicized attacks on women’s health and ignore women’s constitutional rights under Roe v. Wade. To make clear that these legislators mean business: the bill would make it a criminal act for doctors to perform abortions after 18 weeks – meaning their license could be revoked among other penalties. While Arizona is still among states that are backing off of some legislation that restricts women’s access to reproductive health care, they are still pushing forward on these anti-choice bills.

A March 31 article in the Arizona Republic by Anjali Abraham of the Arizona ACLU said: The My Turn (Opinions, Monday) op-ed simply ignored legitimate concerns about the bill and instead claimed that the ACLU has distorted the realities of the bill because of some alleged hostility to religious liberty. The ACLU deeply values the Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty. Because of its ardent commitment to protecting civil liberties, the ACLU has always championed the rights of individuals to exercise and express their religious beliefs. In fact, the ACLU has frequently helped people whose religious beliefs stand at odds with its own policy positions. But HB 2625 isn't about promoting religious liberty, despite the efforts of the bill's supporters to push that message and distract Arizonans from the real implications of the bill. Let's set the record straight by looking at what the bill actually does. Under current state law religious employers don't have to provide coverage for birth control if doing so would violate their religious beliefs. This has been the law for 10 years. HB 2625 dramatically expands that exemption to let any employer deny coverage - it won't matter if the employer is a religious school or the Starbucks down the street from the school. HB 2625 lets an employer decide that its beliefs are more important than the beliefs and needs of its employees. So HB 2625 isn't about protecting religious liberty -- something current law already does. No, the bill is about limiting employees' access to basic health services. The proponents of HB 2625 deny that the bill lets employers control their employees' health-care decisions. But the language of the bill once again tells the real story. HB 2625 eliminates a state law that prohibits employers from discriminating against women who obtain their own contraception. There is absolutely no good reason for removing this vital protection from current law. Supporters claim that they don't want women to suffer from discrimination. If that's truly the case, then they should leave the existing anti-discrimination law alone and in place. Fortunately, some legislators see HB 2625 for what it is -- a means to take away employees' stability in insurance coverage and access to birth control. On Wednesday, the Arizona Senate actually voted to defeat this bill. But a procedural maneuver has allowed proponents to revive the bill -- and they want another vote. A new vote with a different outcome, however, will jeopardize women's health and won't protect religious liberty. Remove the spin around HB 2625 and it becomes easy to see how dangerous this bill is to Arizona's women and families. The very language of the bill makes that danger all too clear. The facts usually do.