Arizona, the state that banned ethnic studies, tried to end birthright citizenship, and basically tried to make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to do anything but breathe, is now taking on self-hating racist moms:
Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into law House Bill 2443, which makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion based on the sex or race of the fetus.
Opponents of the measure have questioned whether such a practice was really occurring.
Republican supporters had said that statistics show a high percentage of abortions are being sought by minority women and that abortion clinics intentionally locate in minority areas.
They said statistics show that some populations are increasingly seeking abortions based on the fetus' sex.
Aside from the myth that abortion clinics are strategically located in minority neighborhoods, part of the intellectual premise behind this law is that women are racist against their own fetuses, a concern being expressed by the same Arizona Republicans who have spent the last several years focusing on laws targeting the state's Latino population. If states got awards for racial-concern trolling, Arizona would win in a walk.
Abortions based on gender are far from unheard of; they're common in countries like India where female children are seen as a burden. But even there, gender-based abortions are outlawed, and it doesn't stop the practice because it's impossible to read someone's mind. Even so, there's an underlying societal problem there that can only be solved by prioritizing the rights of women, not by finding scurrilous pretexts to curtail them.
This law is just a way to make it even harder to get an abortion in the state by giving the male partner or the parents an avenue for legal action against abortion providers. While Arizona already forces minors to get parental consent and women to go through anti-abortion counseling before obtaining the procedure, this law targets abortion providers by making it easier to go after them. The point isn't to stop race or gender based abortions; it's to make it harder or less desirable to offer women the ability to get an abortion at all.
