Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Why are anti-abortion legislators cutting essential funds for special-needs children?

Why are anti-abortion legislators cutting essential funds for special-needs children? 

Read More The Pro-Life Parad

On April 12, Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill making Arizona the eighth state in the union to ban abortions beyond 20 weeks. Like most other laws of its kind, House Bill 2036 had been camouflaged as a measure against suffering, predicated on the notion that a fetus at 20 weeks can feel pain. Every woman who’s ever been pregnant, however, knows what the law really means: Twenty weeks marks a crucial point in a pregnancy, when fetal abnormalities can be detected, often for the first time. Many women confronted with a grim prenatal diagnosis choose to have an abortion. Now, in Arizona, they can’t.
It would be logical to expect, then, that these new restrictions on abortion would be accompanied by increased public services for women and children—especially for children with developmental disabilities. The laws should also lead to stronger support for physically, intellectually, and developmentally disabled teenagers and adults—which is, after all, what the healthier and luckier of these babies grow up to be. You might expect the people passing these laws to rally behind the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which bars insurance companies from turning anyone away based on a pre-existing condition; after all, no condition is more pre-existing than one you’re born with. 

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