New state motto: Arizona - Not yet 'A Handmaid's Tale' ... but close

Whenever the issue of abortion comes up at the Arizona Capitol – which happens a lot – you might see a group of women in blood-red capes and white bonnets either standing silently outside the building or seated silently in one of the legislative galleries.

Their presence not only raises the entertainment value of the stodgy melodrama/vaudeville show that is too often Arizona politics, but it raises an important point. A concern. A fear.

Another view: What the leaked draft means (and doesn't) for abortion

The costumes are drawn from Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid's Tale,” popularized as a television series beginning in 2017.

It is a dark, dystopian imagining of a future time when women have no control over their own bodies and live in a form of subjugation to the state.

In other words … any day now.

Supreme Court draft, Texas law will make an impact

If the leaked draft majority opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court that would strike down Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion becomes formalized, it would give states the opportunity to reduce women to the category of chattel when it comes to their own bodies.

And more than a few states, including Arizona, are poised to do just that.

A number are following the lead of Texas, which passed a measure outlawing abortions as early as six weeks and transforming citizens into vigilantes who can sue an abortion provider or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion, with a minimum payout of $10,000.

Studies indicate that roughly a third of women aren’t even aware they are pregnant at six weeks.

The Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature passed a 15-week abortion ban this session, but all of the GOP candidates for governor here have praised the Texas law, indicating there could be more restrictions to come.

Arizona's GOP candidates stand ready to act

Kari Lake, the former news reader and handmaid (of a kind) to former President Donald Trump, posted a tweet reading:

The most vital role our Elected Officials have is protecting our most vulnerable. I call on the Arizona Legislature to put a carbon copy of Texas S.B. 8 on the Governor’s desk.

If my Predecessor refuses to sign it, I will do so in a Heartbeat.

The Texas law also was praised by GOP candidates Matt Salmon and Karrin Taylor Robson, who described it as a “huge step forward.”

Of course, it is just the opposite.

Although, that is often the way things are described in dystopian fiction. Contradictions are posed as truth. It’s like the slogans inscribed on a ministry building in George Orwell’s “1984” that read:

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

An abortion ban is already on the books

Speaking of ignorance, if Roe v. Wade is overturned it could well be that abortion will be banned instantly in Arizona without the Legislature or the governor having to do a thing.

There is a law already on the books, passed long ago and never removed, under the criminal code of Arizona Revised Statutes, 13-3603, that reads: “A person who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than two years nor more than five years.”

Meaning Arizona can another slogan to Orwell’s list:

Past is future.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's new state motto: Not yet 'A Handmaid's Tale,' but close