Arizona Representative, sometimes Washington D.C. representative, Trent Franks.

Arizona Congressman Trent Franks' work for his constituents currently includes pushing a bill for (of course) tighter abortion regulations.

Problem is, the Arizona Congressman's bill only applies to D.C., as Congress has supreme authority over the city's laws, and Franks has taken it upon himself to tell the District what its laws ought to be.

Well, if Franks wants to play "Mayor" of D.C., he should start acting like it, an advocacy group says.

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The apparent symbol of priority at the Capitol.

Abortion still seems to be a top priority for Governor Jan Brewer and the Legislature, as the governor announced the signing of yet another bill that's not making Planned Parenthood happy at all.

Late last week, the governor signed into law House Bill 2800, which, as described in the broadest sense by the Governor's Office, "[P]rioritizes the distribution of public family-planning funds to healthcare entities that provide comprehensive care for women."

As both Brewer and Planned Parenthood acknowledge, it's about abortion.

"This is a common-sense law that tightens existing state regulations and closes loopholes in order to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to fund abortions, whether directly or indirectly," Brewer says in a statement. "By signing this measure into law, I stand with the majority of Americans who oppose the use of taxpayer funds for abortion."

Current Arizona law already prevents public coin from being used for abortions, but the language in this bill prevents the federal money delegated to Arizona from going to places where abortions are performed.

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alittleredhen.com

Just kidding, we're talking about the Arizona Legislature here.

When can fetuses start to feel pain? Nobody knows for sure, but the chief scientists at the Arizona Legislature would like to declare that it's 20 weeks.

According to some actual scientists, the concept of fetal pain can occur at 24 weeks, 26 weeks, between 29 or 30 weeks, or more than 30 weeks, among other answers.

Or, according to a 1987 article cited in House Bill 2036 by state Representative Kimberly Yee, it's 20 weeks.

HB 2036, which bans abortions past 20 weeks and imposes numerous other abortion-related regulations, is now on the desk of Governor Jan Brewer for her consideration.

If you haven't been keeping up with all the abortion priorities at the Capitol this session, this particular bill has caused a bit of controversy.

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alarmingnews.com

Not quite, according to someone who's actually had to deal with one "pro-life" law.

Sometimes it's hard for people to realize the potential effects of all the anti-abortion bills that are always being tossed around at the Capitol until after they're passed into law.

That's why a Nebraska woman has written a letter to Governor Jan Brewer, imploring her to veto House Bill 2036 if it lands on her desk -- a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, among other regulations.

Nebraska already has a similar law on the books, and it's not exactly a "pro-life" law, if you ask Danielle Deaver.

Deaver's letter was delivered to Brewer earlier in the week, as she explained how Nebraska's law complicated her pregnancy.

Read what Deaver had to say to Brewer below:

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​Some people writing emails to Republican state Representative Terri Proud about their concerns over Arizona's "fetal pain" bill got some interesting emails in return.

Proud's response was essentially that she's in favor of the abortion bills up for considering, but would like to take it a step -- or many steps -- further.

"Personally I'd like to make a law that mandates a woman watch an abortion being performed prior to having a 'surgical procedure,'" the emails say. "If it's not a life it shouldn't matter, if it doesn't harm a woman then she shouldn't care, and don't we want more transparency and education in the medical profession anyway? We demand it everywhere else."

Since making laws is kind of her job, she could obviously propose something like this and add to the nationwide "Arizona is crazy" narrative.

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alittleredhen.com

An idea that doesn't seem to be tossed around too often at the Arizona Capitol.

​Over the last few weeks, a few websites have been posting an email response -- purportedly from Republican state Representative Terri Proud -- responding to concerns over Arizona's "fetal pain" bill.

Proud's response to these people is that Arizona's abortion laws don't go far enough.

"Personally I'd like to make a law that mandates a woman watch an abortion being performed prior to having a 'surgical procedure,'" the emails say. "If it's not a life it shouldn't matter, if it doesn't harm a woman then she shouldn't care, and don't we want more transparency and education in the medical profession anyway? We demand it everywhere else."

It's probably safe to say not everyone wants to watch videos of medical procedures before having them done. Sufferers of extreme constipation might not want to see a video of a manual disimpaction before getting that fixed.

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jokelibrary.net

The PC police are in full force this week against "Doonesbury."

​The political-correctness police over at the Arizona Republic have decided this week's "Doonesbury" comics won't be showing up in the dead-tree editions of the paper.

The week-long story arc of the comic mocks the abortion laws in Texas, including a woman having a seat in the "shaming room," meeting with a middle-aged, male state legislator who asks the woman if she's a "slut," and a doctor lampooning the mandatory sonogram process.

You can find all of the "Doonesbury" comics that won't be in this week's Republic by clicking here.

Today's "Doonesbury" strip in the Republic is two dudes meeting for lunch, but not paying attention to each other because they're playing on their phones.

The Republic's running the actual comics on its website, but it's among 50 or so other papers that have reportedly opted to not run it in physical copies this week.

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The top of the list of things state Rep. Kimberly Yee has never said.

​Here's a feature of the Arizona Legislature that Republican state Rep. Kimberly Yee is happy about -- how her bill regulating contracts between the state and private attorneys, passed by the House a month a go, went to the Senate and magically turned into her abortion bill that was previously killed in committee.

That's the beauty of a strike-everything amendment, as Sen. Steve Yarbrough's amendment to replace every word of House Bill 2036 with the exact language of Yee's H.B. 2838, which was stalled in its first committee assignment.

The language of Yee's bill would ban abortions of fetuses more than 20 weeks old, based on the "fetal pain" concept.

The jury's still out on whether that's actually a fact.

Thanks to a 6-2 Senate Judiciary Committee vote yesterday, the new H.B. 2036, if passed by the Senate, heads back to the House for a vote without those pesky committees.

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Congressman Trent Franks' idea of name-dropping historical figures in an abortion bill didn't make everyone happy.

​For some reason, a few legislators weren't fans of Arizona Congressman Trent Franks naming his bill for a federal ban on race/gender-based abortions after Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony.

The bill was submitted by Franks under the name "Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Non-discrimination Act of 2011," but was amended to the "Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act" before it passed out of the House Judiciary Committee last week.

Congressman Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, had some other ideas for shameless name-dropping in the bill's title.

Johnson offered amendments to change the bill's title to either "The Ronald Reagan Impose Your Beliefs on a Woman's Womb Act" or "The Tea Party Determines What Rights a Woman Has Act."

Since the title change to the "Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act" was agreed to, Johnson ended up pulling both amendments.

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​If you've heard enough about abortion in Arizona recently, that's apparently too damn bad.

Between Arizona Congressman Trent Franks' and the state Legislature's fascination with abortion-related legislation, there's plenty of abortion bullying to spread around.

Still, the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List organization is spending some time in the desert this week -- one of its representatives is testifying at the Legislature tomorrow in favor of House Bill 2800, while former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave and other advocates will be shouting about abortion outside a couple Planned Parenthood locations on Thursday.

According to the House summary on HB 2800, the bill would essentially cut off state funds from going to places that provide abortions, unless those abortions are performed to save the mother's life, or in cases of rape or incest.

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