Published on March 14th, 2012 | by Kim LaCapria
0Arizona Bill Passes Effectively Allowing Employers to Fire Women Who Use Birth Control [WTPreciseF]
At this point, it would be totally cool if Arizona could secede and become its own crazypants republic, with the number of totally whack ideas coming out of the “show me your papers” state- the most recent of which ostensibly allows employers to fire a woman if they discover she uses birth control for actually preventing pregnancy, as opposed to treating a non-slutty condition like PCOS.
Jezebel actually put it very well in saying that if “we could harness the power of the crappy ideas coming out of the state of Arizona, we could probably power a rocket ship to the moon, where there are no Mexicans or fertile wombs and everyone can be free to be as mean a cranky asshole as they want at all times!” And while most women and non-horrible men are still trying to wrap their heads around how contraception became a point of contention in the United States in the year 2012, Arizona passed HB2625, which the ACLU’s Arizona Public Policy director Anjali Abraham “says removed an existing protection that would prevent an employer from firing a woman for getting birth control on her own, which is very troubling.”
The bill is sponsored by Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko, who seems to be under the impression it actually gives rights rather than remove them- in essence, the right for a religious employer to no longer have to employ women of loose morals. When reached for comment, Lesko explains:
“There have been no discrimination cases brought forward regarding this issue either before 2002 or after 2002 (when current law went into effect.) We do not single out other prescriptions and other things and say that we can’t discriminate against using them, so why single out this one issue? It is not necessary.”
If the bill does allow for such terminations as it has been widely interpreted, federal law could supercede it. Still, Arizona now appears for all intents and purposes to be a state where possession of Ortho Tri-Cyclen is a firing offense.