ONCE UPON A TIME, DECORUM MEANT INSULTS HAD TO BE SUBTLE

PHOENIX, March 11 – House fed-state had a meltdown today as Representatives Darin Mitchell, Kelly Townsend and Bruce Wheeler got into a heated argument during debate on S1318 (abortion; health care exchange; licensure) and then Townsend abruptly gaveled the committee into recess. The bill would prohibit any qualified health insurance policy, contract or plan offered through any health care exchange operating in Arizona from providing coverage for abortions. Current law bars abortion coverage for plans offered through a state health care exchange established in Arizona. It would also no longer permit abortion coverage to be offered as a separate optional rider for which an additional premium is charged. But the most controversial portion of the bill was an amendment that would require doctors to inform women before they get an abortion that “it may be possible to reverse the effects of a medication abortion if the woman changes her mind but that time is of the essence.” Dems and Planned Parenthood called that provision “junk science.” Planned Parenthood Executive Director Bryan Howard told committee members that they were writing into state law “an assertion that is not medically based.” Townsend pulled the plug after Wheeler called some other lawmakers “extremists” and attempted to ask questions of the one of the doctors testifying on the bill. He and Townsend started talking over each other and Townsend recessed the committee for roughly half an hour before returning to finish debate and vote on the bill. The bill passed on a party-line vote.