The Christian Right’s Annual Culture War Week In The Arizona Legislature

Arizona’s unofficial and unelected “31st Senator,” Cathi Herrod of the Center for Arizona Policy, is having a good week (for her) with the Christian Right’s annual “Culture War Week” in the Arizona legislature.

Using the Mississipi 15 week abortion law currently under review before the U.S. Supreme Court as a model, Republicans are once again trying to criminalize abortion and abortion providers. Senate panel OKs 15-week abortion ban:

State lawmakers took the first steps Thursday to curbing abortion rights in Arizona if the U.S. Supreme Court gives them the go-ahead to do so.

SB 1164, approved on a 5-3 party-line vote by the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, would make it a felony to abort a fetus — called an “unborn human being” in the measure — beyond the 15th week of pregnancy except in cases of “medical emergency.” Doctors who violate the law could face a year in state prison and loss of their medical license [targeted at Planned Parnthood of Arizona], though there would be no penalty on a woman who obtained the procedure.

The sponsor of the measure, Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, as well as many who testified all made it clear they oppose abortion at any stage. But that hasn’t been an option since the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and subsequent rulings which have said women have a right to choose prior to a fetus being viable.

What has changed is that the high court is now weighing a 15-week ban approved by Mississippi lawmakers.

The justices could use that case to overturn Roe, in which case the state’s own abortion ban, which dates to territorial days, could once again be enforced.

SB 1164, however, is a contingency plan in case the court simply affirms the Mississippi law but leaves Roe in place. It would put a statute on the books that would immediately take effect. [A “Trigger” Law.]

Background: Yes, Arizona does have an abortion ban on its books and a Supreme Court ruling could activate the ban:

Arizona is one of 26 states that are either certain or likely to ban all abortions if the high court overturns the Roe versus Wade decision, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that advocates for reproductive rights.

Thanks to Wendi Goen, at the Arizona State Library, we tracked down the state’s original abortion ban. It shows up in the revised statutes from the Arizona Territory in 1901.

Under the heading “Abortions,” the territory made it a crime for anyone to help a pregnant woman “procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless the same is necessary to preserve her life.” The penalty was two to five years in prison.

The Arizona Territory statute from 120 years ago is virtually unchanged today, in the law books for the 109-year-old State of Arizona.

We verified that Arizona has had an abortion ban on the books for more than a century. It hasn’t been enforced since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe versus Wade decision in 1973 legalized the right to abortion for women nationwide. 

Arizona enacted a 20-week abortion ban in 2012, which was struck down as unconstitutional by the federal courts because it conflicts with Roe, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s appeal in 2014. Supreme Court Won’t Hear Arizona Appeal on Abortion Ban. This bill would move up that deadline by five weeks, by piggybacking off the Mississippi law.

Arizona banned abortions for genetic abnormalities in 2020. A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the law criminalizing abortions based on genetic conditions, an 11th-hour ruling that labeled parts of the law as both “troubling” and as promoting “state-mandated misinformation,” in September 2021. Arizona law criminalizing abortions sought for genetic abnormalities put on hold by judge. Arizona appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2021. Arizona asks court to reinstate law banning abortions on basis of genetic abnormalities. The case is Brnovich v. Isaacson, Docket No. 21A222.

The Guttmacher Institute: 26 States Are Certain or Likely to Ban Abortion Without Roe: Here’s Which Ones and Why.

Continued:

Much of the debate, however, focused on what would happen if abortion after 15 weeks no longer is a legal option in Arizona.

“As long as there are unwanted pregnancies, there will be abortions,” said Marilyn Rodriguez who lobbies for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.

“Laws never prevent abortion. They never have, and they never will. All they prevent is safe abortion.” – Diana Whitten, director and producer of the award-winning film, Vessel, about the Women on Waves organization. No one can prevent all abortions. You can only eliminate safe abortions.

Even if the Supreme Court overturns Roe, all that will do is return the decisions about abortions to individual states. And several already are positioned to keep the procedure legal.

The Center for Reproductive Rights says that the California Supreme Court recognized the legal right to abortion in 1969, four years before Roe.

Nevada voters approved a measure in 1990 protecting the legal right to abortion. And other states ranging from Washington to New York have statutes allowing women to terminate their pregnancies.

“Now, folks with privilege like you and me … will always have the means to travel abroad to places where abortion is safe and legal, when and if we need it,” Rodriguez told legislators.

“The bill in front of you will decide whether those without the means [poor women] will be forced to carry a pregnancy to term against their will or to seek unsafe, back-alley methods of terminating pregnancy,” she continued, calling the measure “cruel.”

* * *

Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Glendale, restricting abortion access doesn’t advance the health of Arizona women.

He said that’s not just his view but also that of the federal judge in Mississippi who ruled that state’s law illegal who called lawmakers there “hypocritical, pretending to care about women’s health and the well-being of the unborn and people of color while tolerating poverty, maternal death rates and curtailing health-care programs like Medicaid.” And Quezada said [Arizona] lawmakers [who do the same] here should be heeding that advice.

“We should be focused on that,” he said. “Government should not be preventing a woman from making a decision about her own body for herself.”

The legislation, which now needs full Senate approval before going to the House, would affect fewer than 5% of all abortions.

In 2020, the most recent year for which figures are available, the Arizona Department of Health Services reporters there were 13,186 abortions performed on state residents. Of that total, just 636 were beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Even some foes of the measure concede there are probably the votes for the measure, with the Republican-controlled legislature having a history of approving bills all designed to restrict the process as much as they think they legally can. [Every ban has been struck down by the federal courts up until now.]

Gov. Doug Ducey has signed every abortion restriction that has reached his desk. [Ducey has said that “The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion was a ‘mistake’ that the justices need to correct.” Ducey has said in the past, however, he supports “limited exceptions” to an outright ban.]

There is a separate measure, HB 2483, introduced by Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande, which would create a Texas-style “heartbeat” abortion ban. It would allow any individual [vigilante] to sue doctors or even those who aid a woman to get an abortion and be able to collect a $10,000 penalties bounty.

So far, though, House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, has not assigned that measure to any committee for a hearing. And Herrod told Capitol Media Services that while she supports all efforts to restrict abortion, it is the Barto bill she is backing.

Then there is the “Anti-Trans” bill. Republicans pass ban targeting transgender girl, women athletes:

Senate Republicans approved a bill barring transgender women and girls in Arizona from playing on girls’ and women’s teams in K-12 and university sports.

The legislation, which won the support of all 16 Republican senators, would change state law to categorize transgender girl student athletes as “biological males.”

The 1950s agenda! https://t.co/vCztooOL11 https://t.co/zhFI1LqcFH

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) February 2, 2022

Republican lawmakers, some of them invoking their daughters and granddaughters, said Senate Bill 1165 will protect the sports from the “threat” of transgender athletes and preserve fair competition. Democrats called the measure “state-sanctioned bullying,” saying it was invasive and traumatizing for transgender youth.

The measure would govern intramural and interscholastic teams sponsored by a private or public school that compete with public K-12 schools, colleges and universities. It requires sports teams to fit into three categories, solely based on biological sex: male, female and coed.

It would ban transgender girls and women from playing on a team that aligns with their gender identity by stipulating that biological men can’t play on teams meant for biological women.

Sen. Victoria Steele, D-Tucson, said SB1165 will harm children.

“This is going to have our girls pull down their panties and show their genitalia to prove they are who they know they are,” she said. “I just simply cannot believe that we are doing this. I believed some sense of decency, of love for children, would come through and we would not do something that I believe will harm children. … This is going to keep me up at night.”

The bill does not detail how athletic teams must determine the biological sex of its athletes, but other Democrats alluded to the proposal being an overreach into a child’s body.

Sen. Nancy Barto, the Phoenix Republican who introduced the bill, pushed back against that framing and said that the bill doesn’t require the inspection of a student athlete’s genitalia. She said it is up to doctors to determine’s an athlete biological sex for the purposes of participating in a sports team through a routine physical exam. The determination can be done by inspecting a birth certificate, Barto said.

She reiterated the notion that girls and women athletes are being targeted by their transgender friends and peers.  [Where is your evidence to support this? Sounds like fear mongering to me.]

“This is about protecting the safety of women and their sports,” Barto said. “There is no doubt that, if we don’t address what some are calling some kind of superfluous issue right now, women’s sports is going to go away and women are going to be hurt.”

Barto’s bill is part of a national trend in recent years to target trans youth and their participation in girl’s sports teams at schools. According to The New York Times, there are 10 states that have bans similar to SB1165.

The legislation passed on a 16-13; Republicans hold a one-vote majority in the 30-member chamber. The bill now heads to the House for consideration.

The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization, called SB1165 an “ugly attack” on transgender and nonbinary young people.

“We can promote both women’s sports and transgender inclusion at the same time — they are not mutually exclusive, as some politicians would have you believe,” Casey Pick, senior fellow for advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project, said in a statement. “While Arizona lawmakers are devoting energy to a divisive solution in search of a problem, we know that transgender and nonbinary young people are struggling and continue to face increased risk for bullying and suicide.”

Studies show transgender youth face higher risk of suicide, and discrimination is a factor that impacts that trend, according to a report from The Williams Insitute, which researches sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.

[In] 2020, Barto introduced a similar legislation that died when the legislature quickly wrapped up that year’s work at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A key difference between the 2020 bill and SB1165 is that the latter doesn’t include a clause that required a signed physician’s statement of the student’s genetic makeup to establish their biological sex if the student’s gender identity was disputed.

Both versions are dubbed the “Save Women’s Sports Act.”

Fear mongering right in its title.

The ACLU has an explainer  (BTW, Arizona will be sued if this bill becomes law), Four Myths About Trans Athletes, Debunked (excerpt):

FACT: Including trans athletes will benefit everyone.

MYTH: The participation of trans athletes hurts cis women.

Many who oppose the inclusion of trans athletes erroneously claim that allowing trans athletes to compete will harm cisgender women. This divide and conquer tactic gets it exactly wrong. Excluding women who are trans hurts all women. It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests or accusations of being “too masculine” or “too good” at their sport to be a “real” woman. In Idaho, the ACLU represents two young women, one trans and one cis, both of whom are hurt by the law that was passed targeting trans athletes.

Further, this myth reinforces stereotypes that women are weak and in need of protection. Politicians have used the “protection” trope time and time again, including in 2016 when they tried banning trans people from public restrooms by creating the debunked “bathroom predator” myth. The real motive is never about protection — it’s about excluding trans people from yet another public space. The arena of sports is no different.

On the other hand, including trans athletes will promote values of non-discrimination and inclusion among all student athletes. As longtime coach and sports policy expert Helen Carroll explains, efforts to exclude subsets of girls from sports, “can undermine team unity and also encourage divisiveness by policing who is ‘really’ a girl.” Dr. Mary Fry adds that youth derive the most benefits from athletics when they are exposed to caring environments where teammates are supported by each other and by coaches. Banning some girls from athletics because they are transgender undermines this cohesion and compromises the wide-ranging benefits that youth get from sports.

FACT: Trans athletes do not have an unfair advantage in sports.

MYTH: Trans athletes’ physiological characteristics provide an unfair advantage over cis athletes.

Women and girls who are trans face discrimination and violence that makes it difficult to even stay in school. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, 22 percent of trans women who were perceived as trans in school were harassed so badly they had to leave school because of it. Another 10 percent were kicked out of school. The idea that women and girls have an advantage because they are trans ignores the actual conditions of their lives.

Trans athletes vary in athletic ability just like cisgender athletes. “One high jumper could be taller and have longer legs than another, but the other could have perfect form, and then do better,” explains Andraya Yearwood, a student track athlete and ACLU client. “One sprinter could have parents who spend so much money on personal training for their child, which in turn, would cause that child to run faster,” she adds. In Connecticut, where cisgender girl runners have tried to block Andraya from participating in the sport she loves, the very same cis girls who have claimed that trans athletes have an “unfair” advantage have consistently performed as well as or better than transgender competitors.

“A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance,”according to Dr. Joshua D. Safer. “For a trans woman athlete who meets NCAA standards, “there is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman.”

FACT: Trans girls are girls.

MYTH: Sex is binary, apparent at birth, and identifiable through singular biological characteristics.

Girls who are trans are told repeatedly that they are not “real” girls and boys who are trans are told they are not “real” boys. Non-binary people are told that their gender is not real and that they must be either boys or girls. None of these statements are true. Trans people are exactly who we say we are.

There is no one way for women’s bodies to be. Women, including women who are transgender, intersex, or disabled, have a range of different physical characteristics.

“A person’s sex is made up of multiple biological characteristics and they may not all align as typically male or female in a given person,” says Dr. Safer. Further, many people who are not trans can have hormones levels outside of the range considered typical of a cis person of their assigned sex.

When a person does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth, they must be able to transition socially — and that includes participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. According to Dr. Deanna Adkins, excluding trans athletes can be deeply harmful and disruptive to treatment. “I know from experience with my patients that it can be extremely harmful for a transgender young person to be excluded from the team consistent with their gender identity.”

FACT: Trans people belong on the same teams as other students.

MYTH: Trans students need separate teams.

Trans people have the same right to play sports as anybody else. “For the past nine years,” explains Carroll, “transgender athletes have been able to compete on teams at NCAA member collegiates and universities consistent with their gender identity like all other student-athletes with no disruption to women’s collegiate sports.”

Excluding trans people from any space or activity is harmful, particularly for trans youth. A trans high school student, for example, may experience detrimental effectsto their physical and emotional wellbeing when they are pushed out of affirming spaces and communities. As Lindsay Hecox says, “I just want to run.”

According to Dr. Adkins, “When a school or athletic organization denies transgender students the ability to participate equally in athletics because they are transgender, that condones, reinforces, and affirms the transgender students’ social status as outsiders or misfits who deserve the hostility they experience from peers.”

Believing and perpetuating myths and misconceptions about trans athletes is harmful. Denying trans people the right to participate is discrimination and it doesn’t just hurt trans people, it hurts all of us.