The following letter by sent by National Right to Life
to members of the U.S. House of Representatives on May 29,
2012.
May 29, 2012
RE: May 30 House roll call on the Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) (H.R. 3541)
(ban on abortion as method of sex selection)
Dear Member of Congress:
On Wednesday, May 30, 2012, the House of Representatives
will take up, under Suspension of the Rules, a bill to
prohibit the use of abortion as a method of sex selection in
the United States –- the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (H.R.
3541). The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the
nationwide federation of state right-to-life organizations,
strongly urges you to vote to pass this important
legislation. NRLC reserves the right to include the roll
call on H.R. 3541 in the NRLC scorecard of roll calls on key
right-to-life issues for the 112th Congress.
The use of abortion as a means of sex selection is a major
social problem in a number of Asian countries, including
China and India. There are credible estimates that 160
million women and girls are missing from the world due to
sex selection, and the figure may be even higher. Writing
in the Fall 2011 issue of The New Atlantis,
political economist Nicholas Eberstadt of the American
Enterprise Institute observed, “In terms of its sheer toll
in human numbers, sex-selective abortion has assumed a scale
tantamount to a global war against baby girls.”
Multiple academic papers have put forward evidence that the
practice of sex-selection by abortion is increasing in the
United States, especially although not exclusively within
communities of immigrants from Asia. For example, a study
by researchers at the University of Connecticut, published
in Prenatal Diagnosis in March 2011, concluded, “The male to
female livebirth sex ratio in the United States exceeded
expected biological variation for third+ births to Chinese,
Asian Indians and Koreans, strongly suggesting prenatal sex
selection.”
Dr. Sunita Puri and three other researchers at the
University of California interviewed “65 immigrant Indian
women in the United States who had pursued fetal sex
selection.” They wrote: “We found that 40% of the women
interviewed had terminated prior pregnancies with female
fetuses and that 89% of women carrying female fetuses in
their current pregnancy pursued an abortion.” This powerful
study discusses in detail the multiple forms of pressure and
outright coercion to which such women are often subjected:
“Forty women (62%) described verbal abuse from their female
in laws or husbands. . . . One-third of women described past
physical abuse and neglect related specifically to their
failing to produce a male child.” As a result, “women
reported having multiple closely spaced pregnancies with
terminations of female fetuses under pressure to have a male
child.” (“‘There is such a thing as too many daughters, but
not too many sons’,” Social Science & Medicine 72
(2011), 1169-1176)
Some of the other indications that the practice is
increasing in the U.S. were explored during the public
hearing on H.R. 3541 conducted by the House Judiciary
Constitution Subcommittee on December 6, 2011. We expect
that evidence will be summarized in the official report of
the Judiciary Committee on the bill, which we understand
will be released today.
Section 3 of H.R. 3541 would amend Title 18 of the U.S. Code
to make it an offense, punishable by up to five years
imprisonment, to knowingly do any one of the following four
things: (1) perform an abortion “knowing that such abortion
is sought based on the sex or gender of the child”; (2) use
“force or threat of force . . . for the purpose of coercing
a sex-selection abortion”; (3) solicit or accept funds to
perform a sex-selection abortion; or (4) transport a woman
into the U.S. or across state lines for this purpose. The
bill explicitly provides, “A woman upon whom a sex-selection
abortion is performed may not be prosecuted or held civilly
liable for any violation of this section, or for a
conspiracy to violate this section.” The bill also
explicitly provides that healthcare providers do not have
any “affirmative duty to inquire as to the motivation for
the abortion, absent the healthcare provider having
knowledge or information that the abortion is being sought
based on the sex or gender of the child.”
Please note that H.R. 3541 no longer contains the original
parallel provisions dealing with abortions that are
solicited, coerced, or performed on the basis of the race of
the unborn child. The impact of the abortion industry on
minority communities, an important issue in its own right,
has been set aside for another day. The bill now deals
solely with sex-selection abortions.
Of course, pro-life Members will support this legislation.
But it is to be hoped that even many Members who deem
themselves “pro-choice” will recoil at the notion that
“freedom of choice” must include even the choice to abort a
little unborn girl, merely because she is a girl. Members
who recently have embraced contrived political rhetoric
asserting they are resisting a “war on women” must reflect
on whether they wish to be recorded as being defenders of
the escalating war on baby girls.
NRLC urges you to support the Prenatal Nondiscrimination
Act, and reserves the right to include the roll call on
passage in the NRLC scorecard of key right-to-life roll
calls of the 112th Congress. A “present” vote has the same
effect on a Member’s score as a “no” vote.
Sincerely,
Carol Tobias
President
Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
Susan T. Muskett, J.D.
Senior Legislative Counsel
