Included in the record is how state legislators voted on:

• The Mother’s Health & Safety Act, HB 2036, which bans abortions after 20 weeks.
• HB 2800, which guarantees that federal tax dollars that pass through the state do not go to abortion providers.
• SB 1047, which creates a new tax credit to give children on waiting lists the opportunity to attend the school of their parents’ choice.
• HB 2625, which protects religious employers from being, forced to violate their religious beliefs and pay for abortion-inducing drugs and contraception.

Center for Arizona Policy supported the legislation contained in the Family Issues Voting Record. Since the organization was founded in 1995, 114 CAP-supported bills have been signed into law.

If we’ve learned anything from the last few elections, it’s that Arizona is a pro-life and pro-religious freedom state. Because Arizonans turn out to vote their values, we have a state legislature that has taken important steps to make our state a better place for families.

The Family Issues Voting Record contains how state legislators voted on 12 pieces of legislation. For a complete recap of all CAP-supported legislation, click here:

Arizona Senate Voting Record: http://bit.ly/J6EKSO

Arizona House of Representatives Voting Record: http://bit.ly/Jth789

PHOENIX – Governor Jan Brewer has signed HB 2625, which protects religious employers from being forced to violate their religious beliefs by covering abortion-inducing drugs or contraception in their insurance plans.

The new law puts Arizona more in line with other states that do not have restrictive government mandates requiring coverage for these medications.

“Despite Planned Parenthood’s hysterical rhetoric, HB 2625 is a common sense bill that protects Arizonan’s from being forced to violate their beliefs,” said Cathi Herrod, President of Center for Arizona Policy. “As a woman, I have no right to force anyone to pay for any medication or service if it goes against their convictions.”

“I applaud Governor Jan Brewer and Representative Debbie Lesko, who sponsored the bill, for boldly standing for religious liberty,” said Herrod.

HB 2625 also puts Arizona in a better position to challenge the President Barack Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act which requires all employers to provide free coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and contraception, including churches.

For more information about HB 2625, visit azpolicy.org or contact Aaron Baer, 602.456.1792.

Center for Arizona Policy promotes and defends
the foundational values of life, marriage and family, and religious liberty.
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Have you ever had a “weird” moment turn into a God-moment? I have!

Before a lunch meeting with friend, I offered to pray. He stopped me and said, “The Bible doesn’t say you have to pray before every meal. So, what is your motive for this prayer? What is your purpose for this prayer? Is it for God or for you?” I responded, “Wow, man! It’s just lunch!”

This line of questions set me on a course to learn what are the strategies and goals of my prayers. The real issue for me became “What am I intentionally praying about and why? How do I pray about what’s on God’s heart rather than mine? How can anyone pray more effectively?

Here is what have I learned:

1. The right heart for prayer

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14

Critical characteristics of my heart should be:

• Humility. “Humble themselves” is to “consider another better than yourself.” It comes from a military idea – “to get into proper rank.” A private does not tell a general what to do or there is going to be lots of trouble. So, are we pulling rank by telling God our wants rather than pray to listen and receive from God His heart’s desires for us?
• Righteousness. “Seek my face” is to pursue that which is right, seek to be like Jesus, i.e., in holiness and character. We are to seek to be comfortable in His presence as well as in our conversation and lifestyle. How am I praying to be “Christ” to my “slice of society?”
• Repentance. We must practice repentance which means to “turn from” or to change direction. For the Christian, it is a call to turn from our wicked ways. Many people believe this nation is heading in the wrong direction. But to experience God’s blessing on our nation, we must begin with both a personal and a national prayer emphasis (National Day of Prayer, May 3^rd). Don’t forget the personal. Am I repenting of my personal sin? Am I allowing my faith and speech to reflect my trust in God to “provide where He guides?” This kind of repentance is designed to return God to the center of our nation and my heart.

If you eliminated routine prayers from your day, how much would you really pray? Routine personal prayers are not to be regularly mindless reciting of “tired” repetitive phrases. If we are going to pray with the right heart, we must intentionally focus on speaking to our relationship with Him instead of our routine!

This alone has caused me to re-evaluate how much I pray from my selfish routine rather than God’s Kingdom agenda! I want to connect with God’s heart before I open my mouth to pray.

In both cases, the Republic ignored the overwhelming evidence that Susan B. Anthony was a pro-life supporter and said Rep. Proud’s statements were not true.

There is no doubt that the pro-life movement today in Arizona has strong female leadership – the Mother’s Health and Safety Act, which bans abortion after 20 weeks, was supported by CAP President Cathi Herrod, sponsored by Representative Kimberly Yee, carried in the Senate by Senator Nancy Barto, and signed by Governor Jan Brewer. And don’t forget that a majority of women in the state Legislature, including Rep. Proud, voted for the bill.

However, the pro-life movement isn’t interested in discriminating or dividing men versus women. Rather, it’s about bringing people from all walks of life – and both sexes – together to protect the health and safety of women and preborn children.

Gov. Brewer signs a pro-life bill after the 2011 session

But what about the early pro-life movement? Our friends at the Susan B. Anthony List, who played a key role in passing HB 2800 to defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, wrote an editorial at LifeNews.com in response to the Arizona Republic:

Turning directly to our country’s early women leaders, Proud quotes famous suffragists including Susan B. Anthony, namesake of the pro-life organization where I work. In one editorial (signed “A”) of her newspaper, The Revolution, Anthony wrote “Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who… drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!” [The Revolution, 4(1):4 July 8, 1869]

Read the editorial in its entirety here.

• Prohibits abortion after 20 weeks because of the safety risks to the mother and the pain endured by the preborn child.
• Ensures women have an ultrasound at least 24 hours prior to an abortion.
• Establishes an informed consent website which details the facts about fetal development, risks of abortion, and services available.
• Requires doctors performing surgical abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within thirty miles of the abortion facility.

Over the course of the one-hour floor debate, several members gave very heartfelt speeches as they explained their votes. Here are a few of the highlights.

Rep Kimberly Yee, the bill’s sponsor, touched on the very important and compelling reasons for HB 2036:

“This bill is about protecting maternal health and safety. When a woman has a late-term abortion that is performed beyond twenty weeks into her pregnancy …, this exponentially increases the mother’s risk of death.” She went on to say that “it is also important to recognize that the preborn baby has the ability to feel pain well before the twentieth week of life and that the medical evidence is clear that the preborn child has developed pain sensors on their face in the 7^th week of life. By the twentieth week of life, sensory receptors have developed all over the body. These babies have a full complement of pain receptors at this point in development.”

Rep. Catherine Miranda,the only Democrat to support HB 2036, said:

“I feel all life is sacred.  I firmly believe that how we legislate on abortion reflects the moral values of society, respect for life and dignity of all human beings is a core value of my beliefs.  All of us have to answer to our constituent s every two years when we faced with getting re-elected, but as I have previously stated on the floor, after we leave this legislature, all of us must answer to a higher authority, and with that I vote yes.

“… all of us have to answer to our constituents every two years when we face re-election, but … ultimately, after we leave this legislature, all of us must answer to a higher authority. Mr. Speaker, I vote yes.”

Rep. Terri Proud of Tucson talked about how sad it is that babies are aborted because they will have disabilities or will have health problems in life. She described how her youngest daughter was diagnosed with a fatal lung disease and that although it has not been easy taking care of her, she has become a woman that now sees life as “every moment of breath taken as precious.” 

Rep. Debbie Lesko: Members, to me this whole issue comes down to one question, is that baby inside a woman’s body a human?  My answer is yes, and it is unacceptable to end the life of a human, whether a growing baby inside of woman’s body, whether a healthy six year old child, whether a sick child with a life threatening illness in the hospital, or whether an elderly person reaching the end of life.  In all cases I feel it is unacceptable to end human life, and with that I vote aye

In possibly the most direct floor speech, Rep. Justin Pierce:

“… if you really are pro-life, this bill should not be difficult for you, and here’s why it’s not difficult for me: this bill goes about twenty weeks further than where I would go.”

Rep.Eddie Farnsworth:

“There was a comment made that this is big government coming between a woman and her doctor, the way I see this is this is government exercising its proper role to come between the knife of the abortionist and the unborn child, and I vote aye.”

The final speech on the bill came from Representative Tobin, the Speaker of the House who said,

“Little people feel pain. Little people are alive. Little people at the twentieth week are our absolute most vulnerable. Voting on the side of the very, very most vulnerable is right. Little people don’t understand tort reform. They don’t understand medical malpractice, but this bill may save some of the littlest people. Some of the littlest people may be less at risk today because of our work, and the debate is about the little people, and with that I vote aye.”

You can watch the entire floor debate here.