Thursday, May 31.
The legislation is a recently revised version of the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) (H.R. 3541), sponsored by Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.). The House will consider the bill on the “Suspension Calendar,” which means that a two-thirds vote will be required for passage.
In a letter being sent to House members, NRLC quotes the recent observation of political economist Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute: “In terms of its sheer toll in human numbers, sex-selective abortion has assumed a scale tantamount to a global war against baby girls.” NRLC also cites studies that indicate the practice is also becoming increasingly prevalent in the U.S., particularly within communities of immigrants from Asia.
The bill would 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. However, “A woman upon whom a sex-selection abortion is performed may not be prosecuted or held civilly liable for any violation ....”
NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson commented, “Those lawmakers who recently have embraced contrived political rhetoric asserting that they are resisting a ‘war on women’ must reflect on whether they now wish to be recorded as being defenders of the escalating war on baby girls.”
Rep. Trent Franks (AZ-02): "Sex selection abortion has now left the human family on earth with 200 million missing baby girls. It has been a primary enforcement mechanism for China's forced abortion and 'one child' policy for many years, it has dramatically increased sex trafficking and violence against women due to the imbalanced sex ratios left in its wake across the world, and we know now that it is a tragic circumstance into which many women are being coerced."Sex selection abortion is extreme violence against both unborn baby girls and their mothers. This evil practice has now allowed thousands of little girls in America, and millions of little girls across the world, to be brutally dismembered, most of them in the second or third trimesters, when they are capable of feeling extreme pain, simply because they were little girls instead of instead of little boys. Sex selection abortion is true 'Violence Against Women.' And it is the truest kind of 'War on Women.' And it has now brought humanity to a place where the three deadliest words on this earth are… 'It's a girl.'
"A number of academic papers have now published evidence that the practice of sex-selection abortion is demonstrably increasing here in the United States. In 2007, the United States spearheaded a U.N. resolution to condemn sex-selection abortion worldwide, yet, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we are the only advanced country left in the world that still doesn't restrict sex-selection abortion in any way.
"I know this Congress deals with many controversial issues where it is sometimes difficult for Republicans and Democrats to find common ground, but I refuse to believe that we cannot find enough common humanity in the United States Congress to conclude together that it is wrong to knowingly kill unborn children because they are because they are baby girls instead of baby boys."
CMDA Ethics Statement: Abortion
No comments:
Post a Comment