Rep. Andy Biggs gives Arizona abortion rights advocates a big (unintended) boost
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Leave it to Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs to do something that provides a big shot in the arm for a cause that he desperately wants to shoot down.
This week, Biggs introduced what he calls the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act. In statement attached to his official government website, Biggs says the bill “provides pregnant women an opportunity to review ultrasound imaging before proceeding with an abortion.”
Actually, that’s not exactly how it would work. It's not nearly that friendly.
The bill (which won’t come close to becoming law) would require doctors to perform an ultrasound on a woman seeking abortion care and “display the ultrasound images so that the pregnant woman may view them” and “provide a complete medical description of the ultrasound images.”
Biggs' bill helps abortion rights cause
The patient can turn away if she wishes, but she doesn’t get to say she doesn’t want the ultrasound done, and she doesn’t get to say she doesn’t want the images shown to her or explained.
Biggs introduced this legislation just a few days before reproductive health advocates will march in Phoenix on the 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
He introduced this bill at a time when a collective of organizations — including the ACLU of Arizona, Arizona List and Planned Parenthood of Arizona, among others — is gathering initiative signatures to put a constitutional amendment called the Arizona Abortion Access Act on the 2024 ballot.
It would create a “fundamental right” to obtain an abortion anytime before viability, essentially restoring rights lost when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
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The initiative requires 383,923 valid signatures by July to get on the ballot.
2 words Biggs rarely hears from us
Biggs does this at a time when the Arizona Supreme Court is pondering the possibility of restoring a barbaric 1864 abortion ban in Arizona, or leaving in place an only slightly better law signed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest.
These are very strange times, as we all know, but given the effort, desire and enthusiasm needed to collect sufficient signatures to put an abortion access initiative on the ballot, I’d say that reproductive health advocates in Arizona should have only two words for a virulently ant-abortion zealot like Rep. Biggs:
Thank you.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Andy Biggs (unwittingly) helps Arizona abortion rights cause
