The local lobbying organization best known for its fanatical anti-abortion proposals has finally come around with some anti-abortion legislation, after staying quiet for most of the legislative session.
CAP apparently has Republican Representative John Kavanagh on a leash, since Kavanagh introduced the strike-everything amendment allowing surprise inspections of abortion clinics, and tries to prevent Medicaid money from "indirectly paying for abortions," as the lobbying organization puts it.
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Toilet Policeman Kavanagh Done Trying to Regulate Transgender Bathroom Use
This amendment made it through its first trial -- the House Appropriations Committee, where Kavanagh's the chairman -- and would be the 36th anti-abortion law the lobbyists have gotten passed into law in Arizona, if that ends up being the case.
(Two of those laws have been overturned by courts, and three have lawsuits pending against them.)
Of course, this is the same lobbying organization that claims pornography "has been linked" to rapes, child molestations, and serial killers, and claims "homosexual activists" are "attempting to indoctrinate [children] into embracing homosexual behavior," among other weirdo things.
CAP held a rally outside a Phoenix abortion clinic on Friday, announcing that Kavanagh and Senator Nancy Barto would be sponsoring the legislation.
Kavanagh, who took up CAP's fight to criminalize the use of the "wrong" bathroom by transgender people, is the obvious choice here for CAP.
The bill proposes letting the state Department of Health Services show up and inspect abortion clinics whenever they want. This has been tried before, but a federal appeals court overturned the 1999 law, saying it was a violation of Fourth Amendment rights. You'll never guess which lobbying organization takes credit for that 1999 law (yes you will, because it's called the "Center for Arizona Policy").
A legislative calender shows the bill's set to be heard on the House floor tomorrow.
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