Laws should solve problems. SB 1600 solves a problem that has hidden quietly within some healthcare circles and leaves new parents heartbroken. Some healthcare facilities are not providing appropriate care for babies born with genetic conditions, allowing them to slowly die. It’s called a “slow code.”

Nicole Cistaro and John Stone lived this anguish last year as their daughter, Lorelei, thrived for a week and then suddenly died, leaving mom and dad to wonder if she was “slow coded” because she was diagnosed with Trisomy 18.

Nicole testified in Senate Health and Human Services Committee this week, “Early on, we decided that Lorelei had already fought against every odd. She deserved the chance to continue fighting. It wasn’t our place or anyone else’s to deny her that chance. We will never regret giving it to her.”

Doctors had warned Nicole and John about the possibility of Lorelei being “slow coded” by medical personnel who don’t see the value in putting in the resources or the effort to save a baby they expect won’t live long.

Another doctor, former OB-GYN Lance Holemon testified that physicians delivering a baby are not experts in neonatology and can’t be sure of a baby’s chances at life. He also described what a newborn goes through when he or she doesn’t receive the care needed to survive, “The lungs are the last to develop… without enough oxygen, the baby suffocates.”

SB 1600 strengthens existing law, which requires healthcare professionals to provide reasonable life-saving care to babies born alive during an abortion attempt, to also include any baby born alive. This bill would have ensured Lorelei got the care she needed, just like every other newborn.

Nicole could not have made a better case for her daughter, “Lorelei was not a condition or an abnormality. She was not an inconvenience or something to be discarded. She was loved. She was wanted. Her life held immeasurable value, regardless of her diagnosis. No one has the right to tell me my daughter was worth any less. Her life mattered.”

The Committee quickly passed SB 1600 along party lines. Senator Shamp sponsored the bill that still faces a full Senate vote before moving to the House.

Watch the compelling testimony here and read our fact sheet here.

Separate for Safety

We have seen the awful consequences of school officials trying to appease the gender ideology activists who demand boys dressing as girls should use the girls’ restroom and locker room. In one of many tragedies, such nonsense in Loudoun County, Virginia, led to two sexual assault convictions after a high school boy attacked two girls in the girls’ restroom at two different schools.

I testified in favor of SB 1040 this week in Senate Education Committee. Sponsored by Senator Kavanagh, the bill would require separate restrooms and locker rooms based on biological sex, while also offering single-use restrooms to students who say they identify as the opposite sex. The bill appropriately solves two problems and respects the dignity and privacy of all students. SB 1040 passed out of committee along party lines. Watch the hearing here at about seven minutes in, and read our fact sheet here.

Bills on the Move

Several CAP-supported bills passed out of their respective committees this week and will move on to Rules Committee and then to floor votes. Check the bills’ progress on our bill tracker here.

Crossover week

Today marks the last day bills can be heard in committees in their chamber of origin, which means those that have not been heard will die – at least for now. Next week, bills that have made it through the Senate will crossover to the House and vice versa.

So far, none of the CAP-opposed bills have been heard in committee. There is always a chance any bill can be introduced as a striker, which means the sponsor of one bill strikes all the language in that bill and replaces it with the language of another. We are tracking that possibility moving forward.

Join us Next Thursday in Support for Life!

CAP, our allies, and thousands of pro-life Arizonans will come together next Thursday to participate in Arizona’s March for Life. I will be speaking, and CAP’s Community Relations Director, Pastor Macario De La Cruz, will be praying, along with other pro-life leaders and Jeanne Mancini from the national March for Life.

This will be the first March for Life in Arizona since Roe v. Wade was overturned last June. I hope you will join us for this historic event.

We will meet for a rally at 11:00 a.m. Thursday, February 23 at the state Capitol, and then march at noon. See here for all the details.

ICYMI

• Read here about Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma’s journey from a nine-year-old child in Romania to lead the Arizona House. Listen here to more of Speaker Toma’s story.
• Read here a whistleblower’s account of the destructive practices on minors at gender clinics.
• Read here how the Biden administration is bullying smaller nations into embracing the LGBTQ agenda at the cost of religious freedom.
• Read here how the number of high school girls with depression is skyrocketing and the CDC’s astonishing solution.

 

Stay connected and consider receiving additional publications by joining the CAP Network.