According to Brewer and her Republican colleagues, the law counters a trend of race and gender-based abortions, and doctors who perform such procedures should serve jail time.
Brewer’s spokesperson explains, “Governor Brewer believes society has a responsibility to protect its most vulnerable — the unborn — and this legislation is consistent with her strong pro-life track record.”
There are a few problems with this law. First, the invasion of privacy; as Bryan Howard from Planned Parenthood’s Arizona chapter points out, “This law creates a highly unusual requirement that women state publicly their reason for choosing to terminate a pregnancy — a private decision they already made with their physician, partner and family.”
More pressing than privacy, though, is that there doesn’t seem to be evidence that people are getting or performing abortions to curb a single gender or race.