AZ State Rep. Raises the Bar on Crazy

Just when you thought the Arizona craziness couldn’t be topped, Republican Rep. Terri Proud (Tucson) comes through with the most asinine thing I’ve seen to date in the Republican war on women. I present to you Rep. Terri Proud:

“Personally I’d like to make a law that mandates a woman watch an abortion being performed prior to having a “surgical procedure”. 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.

Until the dead child can tell me that she/he does not feel any pain – I have no intentions of clearing the conscience of the living – I will be voting YES.”

Emphasis added.

This is the entirety of the emailed response of Rep. Proud to one of her constituents who voiced their opinion in opposition to a bill banning abortion after the 20th week.

So let me get this straight…Ms. Proud wants women to have abortions so that another woman can witness someone else’s abortion and are then deterred from having an abortion themselves? This vaults to new levels of crazy. I used to live in Tucson and I’m wondering just how someone this vacuous got elected from a city known for its relatively progressive nature.

Oh, Arizona. You continue to surpass even our most twisted, laugh inducing, mind numbingly grotesque image of inanity. First came the bill linked above banning abortions after the 20th week, then came the bill to defund Planned Parenthood, then came the bill allowing employers to refuse to cover birth control, and now there’s this.

The reactionary Republican legislature is training its fire on women, but they’ve also been attacking workers, and the poor, allowing guns in public buildings, and generally running roughshod over the citizenry. Meanwhile, they’ve done bupkis about the most important issue in the state (and the nation): jobs. They continue to ignore the state’s long term budgetary issues, clinging to the hopelessly flawed and utterly discredited trickle down theory.

However, help is on the way in the form of the inevitable demographic trends and a strong push to register and get out the Latino vote. While this alone will not change the state legislature this year, it will almost certainly make Arizona a swing state at the Presidential and Senatorial level, and probably make Arizona a consistently blue state within a decade. Accounting for an 8.2% population growth since 2008 and all other voting patterns remain equal, if the Latino vote ticks up to 19% of the overall vote (it was 16% in 2008) and Latinos vote 78% for Obama, 19% for Romney, and 3% for other candidates, Obama will win the state. Because Latinos tend to be concentrated in pockets in Southern and Western Phoenix, Southern Tucson, and Yuma, their voting strength is not equal to their 30% share of the general population. Therefore, a concerted effort must be made to register and turn out Democrats and Democratic leaning Independents in every district that is winnable for Democrats. I sincerely hope that the party plans to target these districts this year.

Unfortunately, as for now, Arizona has become the new Alabama and the crazy train keeps on chugging along.

Cross Posted on Daily Kos