Judge Tosses NAACP Lawsuit Against Arizona Ban on Race-Based Abortions

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 4, 2013   |   12:07PM   |   Phoenix, AZ

A federal court has issued a decision to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the NAACP and the ACLU against an Arizona bill that prohibits gender- and race-based abortions.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Casey Mattox responded to the decision in an email to LifeNews:

“Every innocent life deserves to be protected, and that’s especially true of babies being targeted for death simply because of their sex or race. There is nothing medically necessary or constitutionally protected about an abortion that is committed on the basis of sex or race, and the NAACP should be opposed to such a practice more than anyone. The court has done the right thing in dismissing this meritless lawsuit.”

Alliance Defending Freedom represents the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Steve Montenegro, and The Frederick Douglass Foundation. Also moving to intervene is Maricopa County Attorney William Montgomery, who is empowered to enforce the Arizona law.

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP’s Maricopa County branch is suing together with the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. Together the groups claim that the Arizona law is unconstitutional and stigmatizes minorities for their decision to have an abortion.

“It is a tragic injustice to discriminate against unborn babies because of their race or gender,” said Montenegro, primary sponsor of HB 2443. “The public must not be misled by misinformation aimed solely at dismantling a law that gives every child the equality he or she deserves.”

The Frederick Douglass Foundation is a non-profit multiethnic educational and public policy organization that advocated for the bill and seeks to empower black communities. According to the Alliance Defending Freedom motion filed in NAACP v. Horne, “As an organization dedicated to advancing the real long-term interests of African-Americans and African-American communities, The Frederick Douglass Foundation has a strong interest in this law which seeks to stop race discrimination and race targeting in abortion.”

“Preserving the life of all babies, regardless of their gender or race, should be everyone’s priority,” added Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden. “We trust the court will not allow this needless attack on Arizona’s law to succeed.”

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Abortion alone has taken the lives of over 16 million black children. For every 100 live births in the African American community, another 77 are aborted.

African-American teenage abortion rates are more than twice as high as the national average, according to a new study. The African-American abortion rate, according to the study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, is 41 per 1,000 women among the 15-19 year old age group. The national average abortion rate is 18 per 1,000 women among 15-19-year-olds.