Arizona GOP official resigns after comments on forced sterilization

A leader of the Arizona Republican party stepped down Monday after suggesting that women who receive Medicaid benefits should be sterilized.

Russell Pearce, who served as the state GOP’s first vice chairman, blasted the low-income healthcare program on his talk radio show in Phoenix, as first reported by the Phoenix News Times.

{mosads}“You put me in charge of Medicaid,” Pearce said on the show, “the first thing I’d do is get [female recipients] Norplant, birth-control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce], or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

Top Arizona Republicans — including the nominees for governor, secretary of State and attorney general — attacked Pearce for his “cruel” and “deplorable” remarks on Sunday.

Pearce resigned from his volunteer role in the GOP around 11 p.m. Sunday.

He said in a statement that his comments had been “written by someone else” and that he had “failed to attribute them to the author.” Pearce could not be reached by The Hill on Monday.

The former state Senate president, who was ousted in a recall election in 2011, is a longtime critic of Medicaid.

In 2010, Pearce led a push for Arizona to reject $7 billion in federal funding for its Medicaid program. When asked about the 1 million people who depended on the program, Pearce replied, “They’ll probably be okay.” 

His blunt, and often controversial, comments also made him a target for national media. In recent years, Pearce publicly associated with neo-Nazis, called for a deportation program called “Operation Wetback” and blamed the victims of the Aurora, Colo., mass shooting for not defending themselves.

On his radio show Saturday, Pearce also offered sympathy to individuals who enroll in Medicaid.

“I know there’s people out there [who] need help, and my heart goes out to them, too,” he said. “But you know what? That should never be a government role. That’s a role for family, church and community.”