Senate Skips Voting on Contraception Bill
The GOP war on women in Arizona stalls for a moment.
Arizona is one of the nation’s leaders in unwanted children, out of wedlock pregnancies, and teenage childbirth. While they’ve made great progress in reducing those figures the past five years even with a big Catholic population in the state, this legislation would be a step backward on that path.
The Senate today skipped voting on legislation to allow employers with a religious objection to deny contraception coverage to their workers, which indicates that proponents have yet to persuade enough lawmakers to back the controversial proposal.
The bill was pulled from the calendar a minute before senators were scheduled to vote on it.
The measure could still be brought back for a second vote at any point.
Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, a key ally of the pro-life movement, said supporters will try for a second vote tomorrow.
“It’s just a lot of questions on making sure that the language is going to do what the intention is,” Barto said, referring to the amendment supporters are preparing.
Today’s cancellation reflects the difficulties of convincing lawmakers to approve the bill with the promise that it would be substantially narrowed down shortly after.