Governor Napolitano Gets It!

by Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel
National Women’s Law Center

Last Friday, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed her state’s copycat of the federal ban upheld in Gonzales v. Carhart. As I’ve reported before, these state bans are an attempt to bring state enforcement mechanisms to bear and punish doctors more harshly than the federal law allows. The Arizona bill is a prime example – it did not cap jail time doctors could face (in the federal law, doctors can go to jail for “only” two years). 

Governor Napolitano gets why these bills are so troubling and misguided. As she said in her veto letter, “Rather than introducing more criminal penalties into the relationship between a woman and her physician, let us focus our collective efforts to remedy the root issue of unwanted pregnancies by addressing such important topics as family planning and the prevention of sexual violence against women.” Exactly.