Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Despite their rhetoric about wanting to protect women’s rights, abortion hardliners showed their true colors yesterday when they defeated a bill that would ban sex-selection abortions that mostly target the female population.
The Washington Times is reporting that the 246-168 vote, which took place yesterday afternoon, fell short of the two-thirds needed to pass the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PreNDA), a bill that would outlaw sex selection abortion.
The vote was mostly along party lines, with 20 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote for the bill and seven Republicans voting against it.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), said the bill was needed to prevent this “ultimate violence against women.” Regardless of the outcome, House members’ votes would now be known to the public. “ . . . (T)he world will know where they really stand,” he said.
Those lawmakers who voted against PreNDA, saying it was just another extension of the GOP’s alleged “war on women,” received a severe tongue-lashing from Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn.
“It’s hypocrisy to say [you’re] pro-woman and that it’s okay to end the life of an unborn child just because of its gender,” Blackburn said. “Since when did America subscribe to the idea that males are worth more than females? It’s sick, it’s discriminatory, it’s sexist, and it’s blatantly anti-woman and anti-human.”
However, pro-abortion lawmakers such as Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) were sticking to their talking points and insisted upon calling PreNDA “one of the most disingenuous bills” to ever come before the House and claimed it would do nothing to stop sex selection abortion.
“This bill will not prevent sex-selective abortions” because criminalizing the practice doesn’t work in other countries, either, he said. It would, however, force physicians to question women about their reasons for seeking an abortion and “promote racial profiling and discrimination,” he said.
Speaking of disingenuous, just because criminalizing the practice doesn’t work elsewhere doesn’t mean it can’t work here. By saying the bill would force doctors to engage in “racial profiling and discrimination” because they would have to question their patients leaves one to wonder why that discriminatory practice is worse than the ultimate discrimination that takes place via the wholesale killing of baby girls in the womb. If he really wants to eliminate prejudice he ought to vote against sex selection abortion, which is a much deadlier form of discrimination than is requiring a doctor to ask a few questions that might offend a handful of women.
Another pro-abortion lawmaker, Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-IL) fell back on the usual abortion-lobby arguments, saying that PreNDA would send “personal, private decisions into the courts.” The “pro-choice” lobby always claims abortion is a “personal, private decision” until it comes time to pay the bill – then it’s the taxpayer’s business.
The Obama administration also came out against PreNDA, saying that “government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way.”
This is the same president whose new health care plan includes the ultimate government intrusion into private family matters with its death panels comprised of unelected bureaucrats who will decide for families what kind of treatment their loved ones will receive.
Even though the bill failed to pass, those who voted against it have lost the moral high ground in the so-called “war on women,” a contrived political ploy that will hopefully lose steam after the PreNDA debacle.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA), said the 168 votes against Prenda showed an “absolutist” attitude about abortion, even in cases when women are being coerced into abortions of their unborn daughters.
She promised that her organization will “ensure that come November, women will remember who failed to stand up for them,” Mrs. Dannenfelser said.
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