Good News in Arizona

LifeSiteNews has an excellent report on three pro-life measures being signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer (R).

Law Number 1:

The new Arizona reforms establish a minimum 24-hour waiting period between a woman's consultation for abortion and the actual abortion of her unborn child. Under the law, either the referring physician or the physician performing the abortion must inform the patient "orally and in person" the name of the operating abortionist, the immediate and long-term medical risks associated with abortion, helpful alternatives to abortion, the estimated "gestational age and anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child" at the time of an abortion, and also any medical risks posed by carrying the child to term.

A licensed medical professional must also discuss with a woman orally, one-on-one, and in a private room, that medical assistance, as well as public and private services, may be available to help her throughout pregnancy and even after childbirth, even should she choose to give up her child for adoption. A woman must be told that the law protects her against psychological or physical coercion to abort a child she would otherwise keep.

A medical professional must also tell a woman that the father must pay child support "even if he has offered to pay for the abortion," that any person pressuring her to have an abortion has violated the law, and that withdrawing her consent to have an abortion at any time will not compromise her right to future care or benefits to which she is entitled.

The law also prohibits the parents or guardians of a minor from pressuring her into having an abortion. If they deny a minor financial support for refusing abortion, under the revised statutes the state will recognize the minor as emancipated for the purposes of being eligible to receive public benefits.

The law also provides for powerful conscience protections for hospitals, pharmacies, health care professionals, and their employees, saying they have the right not to perform, facilitate, or provide abortions, abortion medication, or abortifacient "emergency contraception" so long as they state their objections on moral and religious grounds in writing.

The second law deals with partial-birth abortion (reiterating the ban in more exact terms) and the third law allows only a licensed physician to perform an abortion.

This is good news. It is also a far cry from what the previous Democrat governor, Janet Napolitano. She worked vigorously to stop any abortion reform during the six years she was governor.