PAULA ABOUD

Arizona’s budget crisis is devastating families every day. We are working hard on solutions to protect every Arizonan’s well-being. So it is hard to fathom why House Republicans would fast-track legislation to create an even bigger burden for Arizona women.

A bill by Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, to restrict women’s access to birth control and abortion care was quickly pushed through the House.

Now, to justify her proposals in HB 2564, Barto has misrepresented the facts (April 8 guest opinion, “Bill would guarantee that women seeking abortion get all the facts”).

Barto claims the bill provides informed consent to women considering abortion. She fails to mention this is already a standard practice in Arizona.

Women are fully informed about the decision when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. Planned Parenthood Arizona and other health care providers give women professional, one-on-one counseling with medically accurate information so they can make an informed decision.

HB 2564, however, will also require medical professionals to provide information intended to coerce and shame a woman into changing her decision.

HB 2564 also imposes a mandatory waiting period before a woman can receive abortion care. This restricts women’s access and adds costs, particularly for women in rural Arizona.

There is no government-mandated waiting period for any other outpatient medical procedure, and there shouldn’t be a politically motivated waiting period imposed on women seeking abortion.

Barto claims her bill gives parents an opportunity to provide consent before their daughter can have an abortion. Arizona law already requires written parental consent for minors to access care.

HB 2564 would actually require third-party involvement in the private decisions that young women make with their parents by forcing a parent and the daughter to have their consent form notarized by someone who is not held to any ethical standards regarding patient privacy.

Another of Barto’s false claims is that HB 2564 will not prevent women from accessing emergency contraception.

This bill would exempt pharmacists from fulfilling their professional duty to provide complete, accurate information about birth control, such as emergency contraception or Plan B, by allowing pharmacists to withhold information and medication from women.

This exemption would override the policies put in place by private businesses that require their pharmacists to fulfill their duties. This is more government interference, this time into the ability of private businesses to create and enforce standards for employment.

Barto also claims HB 2564 reduces risks associated with abortion care by preventing highly trained nurse practitioners from providing early abortion care.

That would overturn an Arizona Board of Nursing decision that early abortion care is within the scope of practice of a specially trained nurse practitioner.

The nursing board’s ruling recognized the widely accepted opinion among medical professionals that nurse practitioners and other advanced practice clinicians are competent and qualified to perform abortions and have been doing so with impressive safety records for more than three decades.

By imposing this politically motivated restriction on medical professionals, HB 2564 would greatly reduce the availability of abortion services throughout the state, forcing women to travel greater distances, and significantly increasing the costs.

Despite Barto’s misleading statements, she is correct about one thing: This bill does not address prevention, which is, after all, the real problem.

Reducing the number of unintended pregnancies is the objective of organizations such as Planned Parenthood Arizona, where more than 90 percent of services are focused on preventive health care services and education.

Arizona has one of the nation’s highest rates of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

We in the Legislature cannot continue to close our eyes to this problem. We must face it head on and focus our efforts on programs that prevent the need for abortion.

When a woman faces an unintended pregnancy, she should have the opportunity to make the best decision for herself and her family, whether raising a child, adoption or abortion.

We should make sure that all options are available to every woman. Barto’s HB 2564 would guarantee that fewer options would be available.

Paula Aboud (paboud@azleg.gov) and Linda Lopez (llopez@azleg.gov) are Democratic state senators from Tucson. Aboud represents District 28; Lopez, District 29.

LINDA LOPEZ

By Linda Lopez, Paula Aboud

Arizonans voted last week to enshrine discrimination of a minority into our state’s constitution.

Same-sex marriage already was not legal in our state. Yet nearly $8 million was spent gaining the passage of Proposition 102.

What has this fortune bought? And what does Arizona have in store for itself now that it joins 12 other states in this dubious distinction?

Judging by the national anti-gay movement’s history, there is still a long road ahead of us.

The state of Maine has been locked in anti-gay ballot initiatives time and again over the past 17 years, even though its Legislature passed anti-gay discrimination laws years ago.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm opposed a similar marriage initiative in her state because she feared its passage had the potential to take away domestic partner benefits, which have been recognized by Fortune 500 companies as critical tools to attract and retain a world-class work force.

This fear came to fruition; Michigan is now locked in a Supreme Court challenge to deny domestic partner benefits to all citizens of the state.

While Arizonans may hope the same situation won’t befall our state, the fact that the state’s anti-gay group tried to eliminate domestic partner benefits via a ballot initiative in 2006 indicates we’re on the list for a similar court challenge.

Arizona is in a desperate financial hole. Several important studies have shown that other states that have passed anti-marriage initiatives will suffer varying degrees of economic loss from the ban on same-sex marriages.

For example, professors at the University of California-Los Angeles, using the best data available to conduct a study, estimated California’s economic loss to be approximately $63.8 million over three years.

Arizona’s state universities have informed the Legislature that the loss of domestic partner benefits is one more way they are limited in their ability to compete for the best and brightest professors.

In addition, the state’s reputation for being intolerant to diversity will cost us lucrative corporate business opportunities and professionals seeking quality of life as a criteria for relocating to Arizona.

How will this state’s tourism industry be affected by the intolerance we’ve enshrined in our constitution? Only time will tell.

Proposition 102 will not stop gay people from falling in love. Its passage will not stop gay couples from having children and sharing their lives together.

What Proposition 102 will do is prohibit same-sex couples and their children from ever having the protections to which they’re rightfully entitled: hospital visitation rights, pension benefits, health insurance coverage and inheritance rights, to name just a few of the 1,000-plus federal benefits heterosexual couples have that are not afforded to the gay community.

Proposition 102 will also drive a wedge between families, forcing couples to leave their home state or forgo the essential protections and equal social status afforded by civil marriage.

Proposition 102 will also have a harmful economic impact on Arizona and trigger cultural strife at a time when we desperately need to come together to battle the bigger social and economic ills facing the state and the country.

In these hard economic times, for a state that is $1.2 billion in debt, every dollar counts.

But what Arizona has lost is far greater than the mere dollar. It has tarnished its reputation and doomed itself to another national spotlight of negative proportions. And that harms all of us for a long time to come.

Arizona Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, represents District 28. E-mail: paboud@azleg.gov

We are doctors, lawyers, CEOs, artists, athletes, teachers, etc., who are gay and are denied the 1,000-plus benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy.

Once again, the citizens of Arizona have an initiative on the November ballot to change our state’s constitution.

Two years ago, we voted “no” on Proposition 107; this year it’s Proposition 102, a slightly different version.

It would amend the Arizona Constitution to deny the option of marriage to same-sex couples. Not only did we vote “no” two years ago, but state law also already defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

In fact, the Legislature voted “no” on this bill twice this year before it finally passed. So why is it on the ballot yet again?

It was forced upon legislators by extremist fundamentalist lobbyists representing a little-known group, the Center for Arizona Policy.

This group was in debt $500,000 from failing to pass this initiative in 2006 and needed money badly. In fact, the Senate president rebuked their tactics on the floor of the Senate, saying, “They have confronted members (legislators) in hostile ways and have threatened and coerced them, in my opinion.”

Their strategies were appalling yet successful. (After pushing this bill through Legislature this year, they received $600,000 in contributions from national groups such as evangelical leader James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.)

Another force was a “directive” from the Republican Party to get it on the ballot.

Many seats are at stake in the Arizona elections. In a phone call to state Senate President Tim Bee, U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl coerced Bee to put the bill up for a vote. Republicans needed this bill to get out their fringe voters this fall.

A third force is that of fear and discrimination. One such example is Sen. Sylvia Allen, who on the floor of the Senate described her moral superiority and the need to protect families.

She indicated that same-sex marriage will signal the end of civilization as we know it.

Ward Connerly, a conservative black Republican, has run successful legislation opposing affirmative action. Interestingly, his arguments involve honoring our constitution and fighting discrimination.

He says gay marriage is “not ‘eroding the concept of marriage.’ If marriage is that fragile, that giving people who are gay equal benefit (would cause harm), then we’re in big trouble.

“I believe in the institution of marriage,” Connerly says, “but I also believe in freedom. I believe in treating people equally.”

Unfortunately, his Republican counterparts in our Legislature don’t.

They overruled the Senate president and suspended rules in order to force a vote on this bill.

And after several defeats, while on the verge of losing that vote once again, they blatantly broke Senate rules on the last day of the session by shutting off Sen. Ken Cheuvront’s microphone in midsentence in order to pass this heinous legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor even admitted to me on the floor that he knew he was breaking the Senate rules. He chose dishonorable tactics.

Cheuvront is openly gay. The former president of the Young Republicans now is a moderate Democrat and has served 12 years in the Legislature.

He is a powerful senator, smart, capable, hardworking – a contributor to his community and his state.

He works side by side with Republicans on key business, tax and health-care issues. In other words, he’s a friend of the Republicans.

On the last day of the session, they threw that respect and friendship out the window. They turned on him, verbally smearing gays.

We are doctors, lawyers, CEOs, artists, athletes, teachers, etc., who are gay and are denied the 1,000-plus benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy.

We, like Cheuvront, contribute to our communities, yet we can’t enjoy the same rights as a couple who met and married after a drunken weekend in Las Vegas.

We pay taxes as others do, yet more than 1,000 benefits are denied to us. That’s not equality, that’s discrimination.

Perpetuating fear, extremists claim that “activist” judges will overturn our state law.

But it was California’s GOP-nominated conservative judges who declared it unconstitutional to deny equal rights to LGBT citizens.

Those judges weren’t gay rights activists. They understand the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men (and women) are created equal.”

Opponents say, “Let the people vote.” We did vote in 2006, they just didn’t like how the people voted. Don’t write discrimination into the Arizona Constitution. Vote no on Prop. 102 – again.

Sen. Paula Aboud is an openly lesbian Democratic state senator for District 28 who also is denied the rights and benefits most of her constituents enjoy. E-mail: paboud@azleg.gov

———

For more information

www.votenoprop102.com.