April 22, 2024
Pro-abortion Democrats are making attempts to play Lego’s with the law in Arizona. Despite their best efforts and with a helping hand from Republican Rep. Matt Gress, the attempt to repeal the recent Arizona Supreme Court Ruling that protects life, failed in a 30 to 30 tie vote.
Students for Life Action (SFLAction) was on the ground in Arizona, fighting hard to change minds and convince voters, as well as encouraging elected officials to stand strong for life through literature drops, door knocking, digital campaigns including texts, and grassroots activism.
READ: This Week: Students for Life Action Calls on Legislators to Defend Pro-Life Protections
By and large, we were successful, and SFLAction staff and volunteers will pound the pavement again next week ahead of what is hopefully the last attempt to tear down a settled law. According to reporting from The Daily Wire:
“Arizona House Republicans have once again rejected an attempt to fast-track a bill that would repeal a 160-year-old abortion ban that the state’s Supreme Court allowed to go into effect.
On Wednesday, Republican leaders in the state House rejected a motion by Democrat Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, which called for a procedural vote on fast-tracking her bill that would repeal the 1864 abortion ban, but the GOP leaders allowed for a vote on if their move to block the vote was correct, AZ Central reported. Republicans, who hold a one-seat majority in the Arizona House, lost one fellow party member on the vote, leading to a 30-30 split. The tie was broken by a vote from the chair against moving forward with the abortion ban repeal.
The last thing we should be doing today is rushing a bill through the legislative process to repeal a law that has been enacted and affirmed by the legislature several times,” House Speaker Ben Toma said, according to CNN.”
Speaker Ben Toma is absolutely correct – as they say in the courts, “asked and answered.” The Arizona legislature is wasting time on something that the highest courts in the state have upheld, and voters will ultimately get their say in November when the ballot question goes to a vote.
READ: Abortion IS on the Ballot: The Top Pro-Life Ballot Initiatives for 2024
Pro-life laws aren’t the Democrats’ Lego castles that they can tear down and remake it whenever it serves them.
And while that amusing toy for children lets the imagination run wild, a functional legal system cannot run that way. It’s written in black and white, clear for all to see; the law says what it says.
The law that was upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court, to be clear, is excellent. It protects life after conception with the only exception being to protect the life of the mother if she’s medically at risk.
Yet, some of the arguments against the bill have more to do with its age. “The Civil War raged and fortune-seekers hunted for gold. This era produced Arizona’s abortion ban.” mocked one headline from the Associated Press. “Arizona’s law banning nearly all abortion was written nearly 50 years before it became a state, when under 7,000 people lived in the territory” mocked another from Fortune.
But they forget that the Constitution, which protects free speech, freedom of religion, property rights, privacy rights, and eventually ended slavery, is much older than the Arizona law.
And just as the courts cannot legislate from the bench, the actual legislature shouldn’t pick and choose what it likes or doesn’t. And if they don’t like an old law, they can write and pass new ones, versus chasing the shortcut of pulling an existing one that they don’t like out of the legal system. Or in the case of Republican Rep. Matt Gress who gladly did the Democrats dirty work, it’s probably seen as a political inconvenience for the GOP’s election chances in Arizona. It’s a false narrative we’re sadly seeing far too much of.
But whether the pro-life position can win Arizona in November is beyond the point – it’s the right thing to do, and thanks to Arizona’s Supreme Court decision, it’s done. Or at least, by this time next week, it should be.
