The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on a bill seeking to penalize abortionists who knowingly help women carry out gender-selective abortions.
If signed into law, H.R. 3541, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) would send to prison for up to five years anyone who performs a gender-selective abortion, coerces a woman to have one, solicits or accepts funds to perform one, or transports a woman across state lines for that purpose.
Because the bill was fast-tracked through a procedural maneuver last Friday, it will need support from two-thirds of the House, rather than a simple majority, to pass.
“We know that sex-selective abortions are taking place around the world, and that we are missing more than 163 million women as a result,” said Father Shenan J. Boquet, president of the pro-life advocacy group Human Life International. “Those in the pro-abortion movement want us to pretend that gendercide isn’t an issue in the West, but a recent study by the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests that sex-selective abortions are indeed taking place in North America.”
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., is sponsoring the bill. At a hearing he chaired last December, Population Research Institute President Steven. W. Mosher testified that gender-selective abortions are shockingly common in the U.S., particularly among Southeast Asian and Indian communities. He cited a study conducted by an Asian-Indian doctor, who found 89 percent of the women she interviewed had aborted girls at least once.
“These women told … how they were the victims of family violence; how their husbands or in-laws had shoved them around, kicked them in the abdomen, or denied them food, water, rest in an attempt to make them miscarry the girls they were carrying,” Mosher testified. “Even the women who were carrying boys told of their guilt over past sex-selection abortions, and the feeling of being unable to ‘save’ their daughters.”
Though it is traditional for some cultures to value boys over girls, advances in medical technology have allowed gender to be determined earlier than ever before. That technology, in turn, is playing a role in the number of gender-selective abortions being performed in the U.S.
http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/05/2...-on-wednesday/