Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona
Rep. Trent Franks now has
78 co-sponsors for a bill that would ban abortions performed because of the race or gender of the fetus. First introduced by the Arizona Republican in 2009, the bill died in committee. But the reintroduced version appears likely to get a floor vote this time around. The bill's mark-up is slated for Tuesday. It's called the
Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which we first
reported on in early December.
Nick Baumann got hold of a GOP memo Monday that puts forth the talking point: "Abortion is the leading cause of death in the black community" and has become "a tool of sex and race discrimination in America for both individuals and government."
In addition to banning abortions based on the race or gender of the fetus, H.R. 3514 would give a woman's family members the ability to sue abortion providers if they believed an abortion was obtained based on race or sex. Critics warn that it would be next to impossible to prove that an abortion was obtained on the basis of race or gender and fear the provision could lead to nuisance suits against abortion providers by family members who are opposed to abortion on principle.
In other words, just one more nibble at women's legally established reproductive rights. The idea that gender selection is a big problem in the United States based on one study of some Asian American communities regarding the sex of a family's third child is a big stretch. The idea of black women choosing abortions because of the race of the fetus is ludicrous even though Franks calls the issue "the civil rights struggle that will define our generation." It's the latest twist, dating back a few years, of the forced-birth crusaders.
In an article about Republicans' sudden concern about discrimination—for fetuses—Loretta Ross, the national coordinator of SisterSong, an Atlanta-based reproductive justice organization for women of color, told Stephanie Mencimer:
"The most pernicious part was, they're trying to hijack the civil rights legacy in the service of conservative causes, trying to appropriate the mantle of the civil rights movement in a really despicable way. [...]
"It's kind of hard to find evidence that a black woman is going to have an abortion because she's surprised to find her baby is black. It just strains credulity to think that's a problem," [Ross] says with a hearty laugh. "I mean, she wakes up in the morning and says 'Oh my god! My baby's black?'"
So how did the bill get named after two 19th Century icons, one a leading suffragist who once said one thing that might be construed as against modern abortion if you ignored how awful abortions were in the 19th Century, and the other a black Abolitionist who never, in hundreds of thousands of words spoken and published during his life, mentioned the procedure?
No surprise really. The crusaders have been equating slavery with abortion for a long time. They often refer to the horrible Dred Scott case as a Supreme Court decision that was far from the mark of reasonableness, just as they deem Roe v. Wade to be. Some view John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in the same moral category as assassinations of abortion providers. It's easy to claim that long-dead people would have been on your side if only they were around today to stand next to you.
The cynicism behind the Republicans' black genocide arguments is all too apparent. Given the history of the eugenics movement and forced sterilizations, it is not wholly unreasonable to raise an eyebrow if someone suggests it can't happen here. But the evidence that Washington or government entities are today coercing African American women to obtain abortions? Zilch.
Abortion is no simple matter for any woman and historical circumstances have made it even more complex for black woman. Last summer, SisterSong published an entire issue of its Collective Voices devoted to the subject "Is Abortion Black Genocide?" If you're not familiar with the subject, that—not Rep. Franks's anti-choice bill—is the place to start reading.
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Mother Mags has posted a discussion on the subject.