The Arizona Senate passed a bill banning gender reassignment surgeries for minors late last week after State Senator Tyler Pace (R-Mesa) switched his vote. Pace voted against the original version of the bill during the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. At the time, Pace argued that parents should have the right to make those medical decisions for their children.
Pace agreed to support the bill after he authored a strike-all amendment modifying it, which the committee approved. The amendment removed language prohibiting physicians or health care professionals from referring minors to health care professionals for gender transition procedures. It also removed language prohibiting government funds from going to entities, organizations, or individuals that provide gender transition procedures to minors.
When the committee reconsidered the bill as rewritten under Pace’s amendment, Pace cited the international standards of care of World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to justify his changed mind, noting that they don’t support transgender surgeries for minors. Pace clarified that physicians who implement gender reassignment surgeries on minors would be in violation of international best standards of care and subject to sanctions otherwise.
“There’s a certain threshold of irreversibility that can happen during a gender transition. We acknolwedge as a state, and so does other very friendly transgender countries like Finland, like I brought up earlier, as well as the international organizations that say: when you get to this degree of irreversibility, it should not be made as a minor,” said Pace.
There was disagreement in the committee between State Senators Nancy Barto (R-Phoenix) and Raquel Terán (D-Phoenix); Terán wanted to hear more public testimony, but Barto said that they heard almost 3 hours on the same subject the previous week.
The final Senate version of the bill removed the amendment stipulation that a minor must not have lived continuously in the gender role congruent with their gender identity for 12 months in order for the surgical prohibition to apply.
During the Senate floor vote, Democrats said the legislation opposed equality and attacked minors. State Senator Christine Marsh (D-Phoenix) said the bill was an “unnecessary,” masked effort to choose “buzz-words out of thin air” for the true objective of attacking children.
State Senator Rosanna Gabaldon (D-Sahuarita) claimed that transgender procedures merely prevented puberty. Gabaldon didn’t broach the subject of reported adverse effects of hormone blockers and therapies or gender reassignment surgeries.
With the amended language, the bill passed along party lines — no Republicans objected to it.
No gender reassignment surgery under the age of 18 passed the Arizona Senate. On to the house. pic.twitter.com/g7TGnDYjYR
On Monday, the Senate determined that SB1399 would advance for a final vote as early as next week, a bill that would prohibit the state from discriminating against potential adoptive or foster parents or individuals who advertise, provide, or facilitate adoption or foster care services based on their religious beliefs. State Senator Sine Kerr (R-Buckeye) introduced the bill.
The bill also allows the state to consider the child’s religious beliefs in their placement with a family. Individuals may also seek court relief if they believe they’ve been discriminated against, and are entitled to recoup attorney fees, compensatory damages, and any relief including injunctive or declaratory.
Acts of religious discrimination were classified as altering the tax treatment of a person, including assessing penalties and refusing tax exemptions; disallowing or denying a tax deduction for charitable donations; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating, or materially altering the terms or conditions of a state grant, contract, subcontract, cooperative agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship or other similar benefit from or to a person; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating or adversely altering the terms or conditions of or denying any entitlement or benefit under a state benefit program from or to a person; imposing, levying or assessing a monetary fine, fee, penalty, damages or an injunction; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating, materially altering the terms or conditions of or denying license, certification, accreditation, custody award or agreement, diploma, grade, recognition or other similar benefit, position or status from or to a person; and refusing to hire or promote, forcing to resign, fire, demote, sanction, discipline, adversely alter the terms or conditions of employment, retaliate or take other adverse employment action against a person employed or commissioned by the state government.
State Senator Raquel Terán (D-) said she opposed the bill in committee because she didn’t consider religious discrimination to be a valid form of discrimination, calling it “alarming.”
“This is discrimination that hs no place in our country or in our state,” said Terán.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The Arizona Senate passed a bill requiring public entities — the meaning of which was expanded to include state universities and community college districts — to divest from companies boycotting Israel.
Specifically, SB1250 would require public entities to take action within three months of the state treasurer releasing its restricted company list, a record of companies that boycott Israel. As AZ Free News reported last September, Treasurer Kimberly Yee announced that the state wouldn’t invest funds in the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s for its Israel boycott, which violated state law. Furthermore, under SB1250 all public entities would also be required to publish a list of investments sold, redeemed, divested, or withdrawn on its website annually. Those public entities would be indemnified and held harmless for divesting from the companies.
About half of the Senate Democrats voted against the bill: Assistant Minority Leader Lupe Contreras (D-Avondale), Minority Whip Martin Quezada (D-Glendale) and State Senators Sally Ann Gonzales (D-Tucson), Theresa Hatathlie (D-Coal Mine Canyon), Lisa Otondo (D-Yuma), and Raquel Teran (D-Phoenix).
The remainder of the Senate Democrats expressed support or opted not to vote at all. Minority Leader Rebecca Rios (D-Phoenix), Minority Whip Victoria Steele (D-Tucson), and State Senators Lela Alston (D-Phoenix), Sean Bowie (D-Chandler), Rosanna Gabaldon (D-Sahuarita), and Christine Marsh (D-Phoenix) voted for the bill; State Senators Juan Mendez (D-Tempe) and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D-Tucson) didn’t vote.
During the Senate Finance Committee hearing last week, State Representative David Gowan (R-Sierra Vista) criticized the constituents, several of whom were college students, that claimed the state of Israel has engaged in an “apartheid regime” against the Palestinians.
“I know what real history is, and you want to talk about apartheid let’s talk about Hitler and the Jews and the Nazis back in Germany,” said Gowan. “This movement is just another attack on the Jewish society. I mean you see it throughout history itself. It’s a horrible situation that we have to reteach, reteach, reteach because we forget about our past. But remember when you forget the past, you’re gonna repeat it. We want to stop this now so we don’t repeat our past.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The Arizona Senate approved a bill to limit abortions after 15 weeks, SB1164, with punishment reserved for physicians providing the abortions and not the mother of the unborn child. Abortions past 15 weeks could be performed in the event that a mother’s life is determined to be at stake, but the physician must file a report with the Department of Health Services (DHS).
The bill sponsor, State Senator Nancy Barto (R-Phoenix), has been invested in phasing out abortion entirely. Barto was the sole state legislator outside the Supreme Court hearing for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which considers the legality of Roe v. Wade precedent, the ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
Barto called her bill a “common-sense limit,” but lamented that the bill didn’t go far enough.
Barto did concede that the bill was still an opportunity to protect more women from late-term abortions, saying it was “honoring life and protecting women.” Barto criticized Planned Parenthood for not using its millions to help women with unplanned pregnancies,
“15 weeks? That puts Arizona in league with China and North Korea,” said Barto.
Senate Democrats defended the decision to end an unborn child’s life as the personal decisions of parents. State Senator Christine Marsh (D-Phoenix) said that the state of Arizona couldn’t put barriers on abortion until there’s a way to stop rape and incest for good.
State Senator Sally Ann Gonzales (D-Tucson) said that unborn children could be “a burden” to families.
“We ought not be supporting bills like this that really place not only a burden onto families but, as I always like to say, it’s really placing our own individual values and beliefs onto all the women of this state,” said Gonzalez.
State Senator Rosanna Gabaldon (D-Sahuarita) said she wanted to be proud to be part of a state that allows families to make the decisions of what their families look like. Gabaldon expressed a wish that the question of abortion would no longer be subject to moral debate but rather an accepted good.
“I want to live in a world where we respect other people’s decisions,” said Gabaldon. “I want one day for Arizona to look back and say, ‘Why did we have a problem with this?’”
State Senator Raquel Teran (D-Phoenix) compared Arizona women’s plight with unplanned pregnancies to the women of El Salvador under their strict abortion ban in place since 1998. Teran insinuated that the third-world justice system practices of El Salvador would befall Arizonans. She called the bill an “injustice.”
State Senator Stephanie Stahl-Hamilton (D-Tucson) claimed to be a Christian and that the Bible supported abortion.
We need a world where people respect each other’s personal decisions around parenthood and pregnancy—whether those decisions involve giving birth, putting a child up for adoption, having an abortion, or choosing not to have children at all. #SB1164#AbortionIsHealthcare
Of all that elected officials and bureaucrats took away these last two years of the pandemic, a loved one’s final “goodbyes” and “I love you’s” should’ve remained untouched. That much was made clear by Arizonans who came to testify in favor of SB1514, a bill to guarantee that patients have the right to visitation from a clergy member as well as two visitors at all times or their entire immediate family if health care providers determine that the patient will either die or lose consciousness within the next 24 hours. The bill would also prohibit health care institutions from preventing the patient from operating or possessing any communication device, and require them to pay damages of $20,000 and attorney’s fees and lawsuit costs per violation per patient.
Even with their testimonies, two senators voted against the bill in committee: State Senators Sally Ann Gonzales (D-Tucson) and Raquel Teran (D-Phoenix). The bill passed without their votes.
One man testifying in favor of the bill described how his 76-year-old father was hospitalized for mild flu-like symptoms out of caution. During his 17-day stay, the hospital prevented Kaiser or any other family members from visiting their father. Even after a doctor informed Kaiser that his father no longer had COVID-19, the hospital refused to allow visitation. Then, Kaiser recounted how his family received news suddenly that they would be permitted to see their father if they agreed to “comfort care” — when life support machines are turned off and drugs are administered to assist in a patient’s death. Kaiser noted that his father’s requests for certain treatments were denied, even the amount of vitamin C he was given: 500 milligrams, compared to the usual 1,000 when healthy and 2,000 to 3,000 when ill. The nurses told Kaiser that vitamin C wasn’t “protocol” and even health care administrators refused, rejecting Kaiser’s citations of medical studies with their own preferred studies. Kaiser noted that remdesivir, the protocol treatment, caused 60 percent of patients to experience adverse side effects like water in the lungs and organ damage. Only when they agreed to comfort care were they able to see their father. Kaiser said that the hospital’s treatment rendered his father’s physical condition “unrecognizable.”
“We learned that the same immutable adherence to protocol permeated all aspects of my father’s care. He had no effective agency [….] We were clearly beginning to see that each request was friction in a well-oiled assembly line. All requests were denied with similar responses, often followed by, ‘My hands are tied.’ While we were frequently in the care of very attentive and caring nurses, articulate and professional doctors, we quickly understood with each passing interaction that we as a family and my father as a patient had no agency in these walls. Gary had been relegated to a pre-defined and immutable protocol and felt very much like he was on a conveyor belt that, in the end, he was actually strapped to with physical restraints,” said the son. “I pray that my father won’t die in vain: that we will give patients and hospitals freedom of treatment and the ability to be with family and to die with dignity.”
One woman described how she and her husband promised each other to not take themselves or their children to the hospital because of what they’d heard — that people weren’t getting proper treatment and weren’t allowed visitors, even if they were dying. Their fears came true when her husband suffered severe pains that required an emergency room visit several weeks after having COVID-19. Nurses ignored the woman’s pleas to help her husband during his stay at the hospital, dismissing his complaints of pain — staff later determined after attempting a heart surgery that he suffered a heart attack three days earlier under their care. No staff noticed because nobody bothered to check his file. Yet, the woman recalled how staff jumped at the chance to ensure hospital policy was followed when it came to how many of their family could visit her husband shortly after his death.
“My husband was dead, my girls’ father just died, and I’m negotiating with these nurses over policies even they could not make sense of,” said the woman. “Who is being protected by these policies, by these protocols? Not my husband, not me. […] The doctors and nurses knew the medicine, but I knew the patient — better than they would. I knew his pain tolerance. I could’ve helped them. I could’ve alleviated some of their load while advocating for my husband, and he could still be here today.”
The woman’s daughter also testified. She explained that the denial of visitation wasn’t just inhumane — it was contrary to the known medical impact of human touch, which can induce recovery and instill a will to live.
“Why now are we taking away these important factors when people’s lives are on the line? When they, too, need an advocate and need loving touch and human connection to send messages to their brain that they’re safe, loved, and strong?” asked the daughter.
Another woman described how her husband of 39 years was admitted last month for COVID-19. Within weeks, her husband’s condition declined rapidly and she was denied visitation. At one point, she explained that her husband recovered — however, within a few days, something went awry with her husband’s treatment and he declined again. She wasn’t able to intervene with what went awry because visitation policy kept her away. The doctors finally allowed the woman and her family to come say goodbye during her husband’s final moments, but would only admit two of their group to go into her husband’s room.
“If we could have only seen him, would he still be here with us today?” asked the woman. “This is heartbreaking and it’s got to stop after two years of this. Please. Please pass this.”
Another woman described how her husband has been hospitalized since mid-October, but hospitals won’t allow her children to see him. She lamented that another of her family hospitalized for COVID-19, her mother, likely would’ve survived her hospital stay had the health care administrators allowed them to choose their own treatments.
State Senator Kelly Townsend lamented what society sacrificed to feel “safe” from COVID-19. Townsend expressed hope that God would have mercy on the many who were merciless.
“I have a hard time understanding the attitude of the hospitals who have seemingly abandoned all sense of ‘humankindness’ in the wake of COVID fear,” said Townsend. “They have violated ARS 36-1301 that says a person has a legal right to refuse service or choose the mode of health care by denying families and the patient any say in the management of care while in the hospital and at the end of life. Many are questioning the type of treatment received in the hospital, and have expressed fear to ever go back and trust their medical care to these hospitals. I must say, I do not blame them. We need a reassessment of who we are as Arizonans, as human beings. God forgive us.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
