Arizona Republican Rep. Terri Proud told a constituent in an email that women should be required to “watch an abortion being performed” prior to having it:

Arizona has become the national epicenter in recent weeks in the battle over abortion and contraception regulations. Conservative Arizona lawmakers hope Arizona will join a handful of other states in banning most abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, as proposed in House Bill 2036.

House Bill 2800, which would strip Planned Parenthood of public funds for health-care services, is still alive. And then there’s House Bill 2625, which would allow companies to opt out of covering contraception in their health-care plans for religious reasons.

But with all this, at least one lawmaker doesn’t believe Arizona has yet gone far enough. An opponent of HB 2036 e-mailed her lawmakers to voice her opinion. The Tucson reader shared the response from Rep. Terri Proud, R-Tucson. The reader called the e-mail “most inappropriate for someone who makes policy decisions for women in this state.”

The e-mail, which has not been edited, said:

“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.”

In an e-mail to Insider, Proud defended her statement, saying women should be aware of any surgical procedure “especially when a foreign object is extracting from a delicate organ.”

And the crusade continues….