Day After Governor’s Veto, Arizona Takes Up Abortion Clinics
A day after being reprimanded by Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, for failing to heed her call for action on the budget and the state’s child welfare agency, Arizona’s Republican-led House of Representatives promptly took up a new piece of social legislation on Thursday that would permit the surprise inspection of abortion clinics in the state.
The measure, which would also require the clinics to report “whenever an infant is born alive after a botched abortion,” was championed by the Center for Arizona Policy, the same powerful Evangelical Christian group that pushed a bill Ms. Brewer vetoed on Wednesday that would have made it easier for businesses to refuse service to gay men, lesbians and other people on religious grounds.
“When I addressed the Legislature earlier this year, I made my priorities for this session abundantly clear,” Ms. Brewer said Wednesday as she announced the veto. One, she said, was “passing a responsible budget that continues Arizona’s economic comeback.” Another was fixing the state’s beleaguered child-protection system.
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