Phoenix City Council passes abortion resolution to deprioritize police investigations of abortion

The Phoenix City Council voted 6-2 to support an abortion resolution which would seek to de-prioritize police investigations of abortion. The move follows the passage of Senate Bill 1164, a 2022 measure protecting preborn human beings after 15 weeks gestation from abortion, signed into law by Governor Doug Ducey.

None of the state’s pro-life measures allow for women to be prosecuted for abortion.

Resolution 22069 was introduced on October 11 at a special meeting scheduled by the mayor. It declared the “Council’s support for the rights of pregnant persons in the City to obtain access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, including abortion care.” The resolution opposed the “decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, as well as the state laws that limit or deny access to abortion care. It calls on the Arizona State Legislature to repeal A.R.S. §§ 36-2321 to 2326 and all other Arizona laws aimed at limiting or denying access to abortion care, and to enact laws that protect full access to reproductive health care, including abortion.”

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The resolution also declared “Council’s support for City officials in establishing law enforcement priorities that consider the need to protect the physical, psychological, and socioeconomic well-being of pregnant persons and their care providers, and make the enforcement of laws that restrict or deny abortion and abortion-related care the lowest priority for law enforcement.”

The move follows a similar resolution adopted by the City of Tucson in June of this year. It also comes as multiple City Councils, Commissions and State legislatures become the next abortion battleground, by funding abortion, protecting abortion providers and targeting pro-life pregnancy help centers.

According to City Attorney Cris Meyer, seen in the video below, the City cannot decriminalize abortions in Phoenix nor can they use public funds to facilitate an abortion. But he noted that the City’s police chief has discretion on what laws to enforce and prioritize:

Phoenix City Council Policy Session - OCTOBER 11, 2022

During the meeting, 10 people spoke in favor of the resolution and 17 people spoke against it, the Arizona Mirror reported. “It is incontrovertible that what is in the womb is human from the moment of conception,” said Jeff Durbin, a Mesa pastor, adding that abortion dehumanizes people in the same way that slavery did.

Parris Wallace, the Board Secretary of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, admitted to the Council that she aborted one of her own children before reminding members that Planned Parenthood had endorsed most of them, then demanding they support the resolution.

But 14-year-old Lauren Walker, who followed Wallace, owned the room with poise and grace asking the Council whether they would support a mother who asked them for the right to murder her two-year old son? “Of course not,” she stated emphatically.

“We are appalled whenever we hear stories of mothers who drown their children in bathtubs, or leaving them to die in a dumpster, or strangling them to death. But this legislation deems when a child is inside the womb, it is fine to chemically burn them, surgically tear off their limbs or vacuum them into thousands of pieces,” she added. “The matter being discussed today is asking to give women the right to murder their children and instruct the police not to enforce the law.”

“Previously, you justified your belief of a woman’s rights in abortion with Roe v. Wade. But Roe is now overturned. You’re no longer fighting for the law, but against it… I appreciate your deep concerns for my rights as a woman today, but my honest question to you now, is would you have that same conviction for my rights if I was fourteen years younger in my mother’s womb?”

“I am simply asking you to be consistent and not discriminate against women due to their age because the most basic right a woman can have is the right to life,” she added.

The Arizona Mirror cited another objector who reportedly “told the council members that it was hypocritical of them to say they supported women, Indigenous people, and people of color and then support those people being ‘slaughtered’ through abortion.”

Husband and wife couple, Christopher and Candace Samuels, also addressed the council, urging them to oppose the measure.

“It’s a tricky way to get around the law,” Candace Samuels stated, “These children don’t matter? These women don’t matter?” she asked.

Christopher Samuels pointed out that while the Council had expressed concern for “equity,” he claimed, “Nothing has been expressed for concern of the child created in God’s image…”

“The thought that we could say that it is legitimate that the City Council would consider this a good thing – that we would come alongside and to even reduce the protection that’s already on the books and the laws, to guard against the ripping apart of children in the womb, there’s no more violent crime that’s being committed in this country, in this state,” the new father added.

“Let’s call it what it is: the ripping apart of the child in the womb,” Christopher stated. “This is the highest crime that’s being committed, murder of the human being created in God’s image,” he added, after calling the proposal “absolutely abominable.”

As the measure came up for a vote, Council member Sal DiCiccio said that there was a time when he would have supported an abortion resolution but he now believed that a baby is a baby — a person who “deserves the same rights — the same protections as we would to any one of our neighbors here… So, I’m going to be opposing it.”

DiCiccio was joined by Jim Waring who also opposed the measure, while Mayor Kate Gallego and Vice Mayor Laura Pastor, along with council members Yassamin Ansari, Carlos Garcia, Betty Guardado, and Debra Stark all voted to pass the measure.