Razing Arizona

| Wed 20 Jun 2012 | 6 Comments | 1161 Views

Author Emily Dietle

My focus is on state-church separation & social issues. I'm an avid reader, and feel that one of our most valuable tools is the free movement of information and ideas. | @emilyhasbooks

As Howard Fischer reports in Tempe’s East Valley Tribune, “State health officials and their allies launched a campaign Monday to convince pregnant women to leave the bun in the oven a bit longer.”

There have been a number of laws leeching out of Arizona lately, covering all manner of women’s issues- allowing employers to fire you for birth control, restricting family planning choices, and whether or not your doctor can lie to you, and remember- pregnancies in Arizona begin two weeks before conception, according to their lawmakers. So, my skepticism about the intentions of the Arizona leadership partnering with the March of Dimes to promote this campaign should be understandable.

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

B.J. Johnson, Arizona Perinatal Trust

Though more was said on the issue at the press conference, Johnson stated, “Too often we have women who want to have their baby on a certain day because the grandparents are in town. … Basically, the issue is caving in to peer pressure.”

Time and time again we hear, “Selfish. Dumb. Women.” Outside of his condescending conjecture, there are real issues in Arizona regarding pregnancy education, and perhaps there wouldn’t be so many issues if the sex education in their public schools weren’t gutted and geared towards religiously skewed abstinence-only guidance.

“Half of pregnancies are unplanned. … Then, when you do have that unplanned pregnancy, you’ll be in a good position to have a good outcome,” Humble said. Arizona is not an innocent party in all of this. They may be jumping on the positive P.R. wagon now, but their care and concern has not been on women of child-bearing age, except to control them through religiously infused laws.
Those unplanned pregnancies are found at highest concentration in the 15-19 year old crowd that is vastly undereducated about birth control, sex, and pregnancy; and is restricted at length by several laws to end those unwanted pregnancies. As of 2011, the public costs of all births resulting from unplanned pregnancies for Arizona was $289 million USD.

 

We’ll only see more pregnancy-related issues arise in AZ, as now they propose to cut all funding from planned parenthood in the state; funding which helps care for 40,000 patients every year. Another bill will mandate how schools address the topic of unwanted pregnancies- requiring that they teach students that adoption and birth are the most acceptable outcomes for an unwanted pregnancy, but still not requiring that they be informed about how to prevent pregnancy in the first place, or the options for terminating said pregnancy.
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Category: Politics, Women & Equality