Arizona's most powerful anti-abortion lobbyist retired following key defeats last year
Cathi Herrod in 2025. Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Cathi Herrod, who led the decades-long fight to enact dozens of anti-abortion laws in Arizona, left her post as president of the Center for Arizona Policy last month.
Herrod helmed Center for Arizona Policy, an evangelical Christian advocacy group that has fought for — and in many cases succeeded — laws restricting abortion and curtailing rights for gay and transgender people, for nearly 20 years before retiring in January.
Center for Arizona Policy is a powerful lobbying group that had a hand in most of the Grand Canyon State's abortion restrictions passed over the past 30 years, including the 15-week ban signed into law in 2022. That ban was nullified when voters in November approved the Arizona Abortion Access Act, which enshrined the right to abortion into the state constitution, and set the stage for the courts to unravel much of the abortion regulation that Herrod and her organization worked to place in state law to make it more difficult for women to access reproductive health care and for doctors to provide it.
'Arizona will come to regret passing Prop 139 — when girls and women lose their doctors and safeguards, when parents get shut out, when a staggering number of unborn lives end before they even begin, and when voters realize they have been lied to by proponents who would say anything to pass their extreme abortion amendment,' Herrod wrote in a statement shortly after the election.
Herrod and the Center for Arizona Policy were vocal opponents and fought to defeat the measure.
Also last year, Herrod fought to keep the legislature from overturning a near-total abortion ban that was written in 1864, which she called 'the most protective pro-life law in the country.' Lawmakers ultimately repealed that Civil War-era law.
She and the Center for Arizona Policy also backed an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that effectively made in vitro fertilization illegal in that state.
On Jan. 16, Herrod quietly announced her retirement through a post on the Center for Arizona Policy website. In a letter to supporters, she wrote that she decided in 2022 that her time as president was coming to an end.
'Serving God through His work at Center for Arizona Policy has been a blessing for me,' she wrote. 'I have had the joy of knowing I was called to this work and this ministry. You all have been an encouragement and blessing. Your prayers mean more to me than I can say.'
In the same missive, Herrod introduced her successor, Peter Gentala, who served as an attorney for the CAP from 2004 to 2008. That year, he was hired as a GOP caucus attorney for the Arizona House of Representatives, and he later worked for Childhelp. Gentala officially took over as the organization's president on Feb. 10.
'I consider it a high honor and blessing for Peter to follow me,' Herrod wrote. 'I can't think of anyone more qualified and suited to lead CAP forward. Peter loves the Lord and lives out a biblically-formed worldview.'
In an adjoining statement, Greg Fraley, chairman of CAP's board of directors, wrote that throughout his career Gentala has focused on the issues that matter most to the Center for Arizona Policy.
Prior to his previous stint with CAP, Gentala worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Scottsdale-based advocacy group that files lawsuits aimed at advancing far-right policy goals..
'I am so happy and honored to follow Cathi Herrod as CAP's next president,' Gentala wrote in a statement. 'I admire Cathi — and I know that admiration is shared throughout our great state. Through the years, she has been a dynamic leader, a redoubtable advocate for the truth, and a compassionate reflection of God's love.'
In addition to its advocacy for restrictions on abortion, the Center for Arizona Policy supported Arizona's universal expansion of state-funded vouchers to pay for private school tuition, as well as a litany of anti-LGBTQ policies and legislation.
The organization's 'statement of faith' posted on its website says that its members believe marriage 'has only one meaning; the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture' and that sex should only occur in a marriage between a man and a woman.
The statement goes on to say that 'the rejection of one's biological sex and adoption of a transgender self-conception is inconsistent with God's holy purposes in creation and a departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.'
In Gentala's statement, he praised CAP's work over the past 30 years, saying that it had contributed to more than 200 pieces of legislation that he said affirmed the value of every human life, the importance of families as the foundation of society and freedom to practice religion.
'As my season of leadership begins, please know that my overarching ambition for this organization is to be ready and willing to answer the call of the Lord, to entrust all results in His hands, and to give Him the Glory every step of the way,' Gentala wrote.
Herrod did not respond to a request for comment.
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