The House will vote this week on legislation imposing criminal penalties on anyone performing an abortion based on the sex of the child, but the measure runs the risk of failing on the floor because of how the GOP is calling it up.

Republican leaders have scheduled a vote on HR3541, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), under a suspension of House rules, which will require a two-thirds majority vote for passage. Suspension votes are usually reserved for non-controversial bills, but Republican leaders have occasionally used the process for bills that Democrats oppose, and the PRENDA bill appears to be one of those.

Democratic opposition to the bill began with its original name, the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Non-discrimination Act. Democrats argued in February that while the bill was named after these civil rights heroes, it has nothing to do with protecting civil rights...

Still, the bill was voted out of committee with only Republican support. That partisan vote, and Democrats' ongoing opposition to the bill, could make it difficult for the bill to be approved by a two-thirds vote on the floor. Roughly 50 Democrats would need to join Republicans to pass the bill under suspension of the rules...

Democrats argue that the bill looks to erect new hurdles to women's right to abortion. The legislation looks to ensure there are no gender-based abortions by authorizing fines and prison terms of up to five years against doctors who perform these abortions, and requires health professionals to report suspected violations of the law.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) said when he introduced the bill that his aim is to ensure equal rights for unborn children. In December, his office put out a statement stressing the race language in the original bill, which said, "A minority baby is currently five times more likely to be aborted than a white baby, and nearly half of all black babies are aborted, with over 70 percent of abortion clinics being located in predominantly minority neighborhoods.

"Our innate sense of human fairness should make it abundantly clear that aborting a little baby because he or she happens to be black or because he or she has been arbitrarily deemed 'lesser' is fundamentally wrong," Franks said.

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Editor's Note: China mandates the forced abortion of subsequent pregnancies fomenting female fetuses...Why should we be surprised that an administration that shows enthusiasm for the Chinese political model wouldn't shrug-off the horrors of fetus gender recognized abortion?


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