Tuesday, February 22, 2011

AZ Abortion Ban for Race/Gender Selection

The Arizona House gave preliminary approval to a bill to ban abortions based solely on the sex or race of the baby, countering eugenic bigotry and discrimination.

UPDATE 3/30/11: Arizona first state making sex- or race-selection abortions a crime, as governor signs bill

UPDATE 3/22/11: Senate passes bill

-- From "Arizona Attempting to Ban Sex and Race Selective Abortions" by Cleveland Leader Staff 2/22/11

Democrats in Arizona have called it a bill "in search of problems". Republicans defending the bill have claimed that it refutes suggestions that "we are not here to protect the minority population."

Should the bill advance to becoming law, it would thus require that women justify or explain their reasoning for ending a pregnancy, and then require them to seek approval from an outside body to go ahead with it.

However, this bill is not the only abortion issue that Arizona legislators have before them. There are also bills before them that would ban telemedicine prescriptions of medication abortion, a new ultrasound requirement, and a bill trying to limit the resprctions of medication abortions which would mean physicians' assistants couldn't prescribe the abortion pill.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "House OKs banning abortions based on race, gender" by Tessa Muggeridge, Cronkite News Service, Tucson Sentinel 2/22/11

The measure, authored by Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, would require doctors performing abortions to sign affidavits stating that the reason for the abortion isn't the fetus' race or sex. It would allow the father, if married to the woman who gets an abortion, to sue the doctor if he believes the doctor knowingly performed it based on the race or sex. If the mother isn't 18, the maternal grandparents would be able to sue.

Montenegro called race- and sex-selection abortions a violation of human rights, saying these abortions are often grizzly, late-term surgeries. Democrats questioned whether such abortions are happening in the state, while Republicans said the measure would help end discrimination against unborn children.

Montenegro has said minorities being aborted at a higher rate than whites is evidence of race-selection abortions in Arizona and that national U.S. studies show that parents prefer male babies to female.

The approval sets up a floor vote that would send the bill to the Senate.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Arizona House passes ban on sex-, gender-selective abortions" by John Jalsevac, LifeSiteNews.com 2/22/11

The legislation (HB 2443) not only bans sex- and race-selective abortions, but puts in place a fine of up to $10,000 for health care workers who fail to report a violation of the law.

While much attention has been focused recently on the racial imbalance in abortions in the U.S., there is increasing evidence that gender-selective abortions are also a rising problem, particularly amongst recent immigrant populations that traditionally favor male children. In a 2008 article Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute pointed to census data in the U.S. that shows that there are significant imbalances between male and female children amongst certain populations that can only be explained by sex-selective abortions.

Rep. Chester Crandell, R-Heber, who supported the Arizona legislation, said this week: “Once we start selecting and we start deciding who we want to be born and who we don’t want to be born, this civilization in the United States as we know it today will no longer exist.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read, Black Genocide in New York City: Abortion