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NRL News
Page 1
Summer 2012
Volume 39
Issue 3
Majority of U.S. House Votes to Ban
Sex-Selection
Abortions; Obama and 168 House Members Oppose
WASHINGTON (June 21, 2012)–A solid
majority of members of the U.S. House of Representatives has voted
to enact a national ban on the use of abortion to eliminate an
unborn child of the sex not desired by parents–but President Obama,
joined by 168 House members, came out against the ban.
On May 31, the House voted 246–168 in favor of the Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act (H.R. 3541), a bill to make it unlawful to
perform or coerce a sex-selection abortion. This was a strong
majority, but the bill was considered under a fast-track procedure
called “suspension of the rules,” which requires a two-thirds vote
for passage. Thus, the bill did not clear the House on May 31, but
remains alive and eligible for possible later consideration under a
majority-vote procedure.
The bill would make it a federal offense to knowingly do any one of
the following four things: (1) perform an abortion, at any time in
pregnancy, “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.
“We are heartened that a strong majority of House members voted to
ban performing or coercing abortions for the purpose of eliminating
unborn babies of an undesired sex—usually, girls,” commented NRLC
Legislative Director Douglas Johnson after the vote. “Regrettably, a
minority of 168 House members, encouraged by President Obama,
complied with the political demands of pro-abortion pressure groups,
rather than defend the coerced women, and their unborn daughters,
who are victimized by sex-selection abortions.”
Johnson added, “We commend the House Republican leadership for
bringing this bill to the floor under the fast-track procedure,
which resulted in a clean up-or-down vote, without intervening votes
on political-smokescreen amendments. This groundbreaking majority
vote was a stepping stone to this bill ultimately becoming
law–perhaps after the replacement of some of the lawmakers who voted
against it.”
The bill is authored by Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.), who is
also chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House
Judiciary Committee.
As originally introduced in the current Congress, H.R. 3541 would
have prohibited abortions sought based on the race of an unborn
child, as well as sex, but the race-based provisions were set aside
before the bill came to the House floor.
Obama Opposed Ban
On the evening before the House vote, President Obama came out
against the bill. The opposition came in the form of an official
written response to a question posed earlier in the day by ABC News
White House correspondent Jack Tapper.
In the statement, the White House deputy press secretary Jamie Smith
said, “The Administration opposes gender discrimination in all
forms, but the end result of this legislation would be to subject
doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine the
motivations behind a very personal and private decision. The
government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family
matters in this way.”
NRLC’s Johnson commented, “The public just learned something
new–when President Obama says that abortion is a private decision,
he includes the decision to kill an unborn baby girl for no reason
other than that she is a girl.”
Johnson also noted that the White House statement misrepresented the
actual language of the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which
specifically states, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to
require that a healthcare provider has an 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.”
Among the organizations that warned House members not to vote for
the bill was the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA),
the nation’s major abortion provider. PPFA sent an e-mail memo to
House members on May 29 warning of its “intent to score” a vote for
the bill as a vote against “women’s health.” Also on May 29, the
Huffington Post reported that “no Planned Parenthood clinic will
deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one,
except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selective
abortions (Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois).”
Floor Debate
During the House floor debate on the bill, the opposing arguments
were typified by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on
the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee. By bringing up the
bill, “the Republican majority continues its war on women in a new
and creative way, by attempting to couch legislation that would
destroy women’s fundamental constitutional rights as a women’s
rights law,” Nadler said.
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wa.) spoke in the same vein, calling the bill
“another Republican intrusion into a woman’s right to choose. Women
should be able to make such sensitive and private decisions with
their families, their doctors, and their God, free from the fear of
the police.”
(The bill actually specifies that “a woman upon whom a sex-selection
abortion is performed may not be prosecuted or held civilly liable
for any violation” of the act.)
Such arguments were countered by a number of pro-life female
Republican lawmakers.
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) said, “There can be no rights for
women if we don’t allow them the right to life. ... This is the
ultimate war on women, Mr. Speaker. If we don’t allow women to be
born, we cannot talk about any other rights.”
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tn.) said, “We know that sex-selection
abortions happen all over the world ... . But according to at least
six academic studies published in the past 4 years, this tragic
reality is playing out in our own backyard. Just this week, an
undercover video showed a Planned Parenthood employee encouraging a
woman to obtain a late-term abortion because she was purportedly
carrying a girl, and she wanted to have a boy instead. A vote
against ending sex-selection abortion is a vote in favor of gender
bias and female gendercide.”
Rep. Franks, the bill’s author, cited a landmark study by Dr. Sunita
Puri and three other researchers at the University of California,
published in Social Science & Medicine in 2011.
“The researchers interviewed 65 immigrant Indian women in the United
States who had sought or were seeking sex-selection abortions,”
Franks explained. “They found that 40 percent of the women
interviewed had deliberately aborted unborn baby girls previously
and that nearly 90 percent of the women who were currently carrying
unborn baby girls were also currently seeking to abort them.”
Franks noted that the study “discussed in detail the multiple forms
of pressure and outright coercion to which these women are often
subjected. Sixty-two percent of the women described verbal abuse
from their husbands or female in-laws, and fully one-third of women
described past physical abuse and neglect, all related specifically
to their failing to produce a male child. As a result, these women
reported aborting multiple unborn baby girls in a row because of the
pressure that was put on them to have a male child.”
Vote Largely Along Party Lines
The House roll call broke down largely along party lines, but there
were some switchers in each direction. The bill was supported by 226
Republicans and 20 Democrats, while seven Republicans and 161
Democrats voted against the bill.
The 20 Democrats who supported the bill were Jason Altmire (Pa.),
John Barrow (Ga.), Dan Boren (Ok.), Jim Cooper (Tn.), Jerry Costello
(Il.), Mark Critz (Pa.), Henry Cuellar (Tx.), Joe Donnelly (In.),
John Garamendi (Ca.), Tim Holden (Pa.), Larry Kissell (NC), Daniel
Lipinski (Il.), Stephen Lynch (Ma.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Mike
McIntyre (NC), Collin Peterson (Mn.), Nick Rahall (WV), Silvestre
Reyes (Tx.), Mike Ross (Ar.), and Heath Shuler (NC).
The seven Republicans who opposed the bill were Justin Amash (Mi.),
Charles Bass (NH), Mary Bono Mack (Ca.), Bob Dold (Il.), Richard
Hanna (NY), Nan Hayworth (NY), and Ron Paul (Tx.).
On June 13, Senator David Vitter (R-La.) introduced the same
legislation in the U.S. Senate as S. 3290. As of June 21, 2012, 30
senators—all Republicans—were cosponsors.
Additional Resources
NRLC’s letter to House members in support of the bill, and links to
academic studies demonstrating the prevalence of sex-selection
abortions (often coerced) within certain immigrant communities in
the United States are posted on this page:
http://www.nrlc.org/Sex_SelectionAbortion/index.html
Always-current lists of cosponsors of this bill, and abundant
information on other bills of interest in Congress, are easily
accessible at the NRLC Legislative Action Center at
http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/home/ |
