The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act reintroduced recently to the U.S. Congress by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) is a step in the right direction. But it is only a step. The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, called PRENDA for short, would punish medical providers that perform abortions or accept funds for abortions when the reason for the abortion is the gender or race of the fetus.
Franks is responding to a growing trend of sex selective abortions around the world where girls are being aborted in the millions just because they are female. He is also responding to the the fact that minority babies in the United States are being aborted at five times the rate of white babies.
It is a good idea. But if passed will PRENDA actually save the lives of girls and minorities? I doubt it. Knowing Planned Parenthood’s penchant for skirting the mandatory reporting laws, I am sure they will go on ahead killing babies for any reason regardless of what the law says.
Many other countries also have laws against sex selective abortions. Believe it or not sex selective abortion is illegal in India. It is even illegal to find out the sex of a fetus. But it hasn’t helped. Sex selection in India is as alive and prominent as ever prompting some places to pay parents to have girls.
Laws that punish abortion providers for killing because of gender or race are nice and they are a step in the right direction but they will not stop sex or race based abortions. The ONLY way to do that is to ban abortions all together. Protect girls and minorities in the womb by protecting ALL life in the womb. It truly is the only way.
Abortion is evil and we cannot put limits to or control its devastating effects. We cannot dance with evil, expecting to confine it to a nice waltz, and then wonder why we are suddenly being trampled in a crushing mosh pit.
And thankfully Franks knows that his PRENDA legislation is only a step. He is quoted in The Daily Caller:
“People will say I have a greater agenda — and they are right — I hope for a day when all children, regardless of race or color, all children because they are children will be protected,” he said.
“But right now regardless of what the long term impact of this might be the short term impact is very simple: Can we not agree that aborting a child based on a child’s race or sex is wrong?”
I look forward to day we can all agree that aborting ANY child is wrong.
LifeNews.com Note: Rebecca Taylor is a clinical laboratory specialist in molecular biology, and a practicing pro-life Catholic who writes at the bioethics blog Mary Meets Dolly. She has been writing and speaking about Catholicism and biotechnology for five years and has been interviewed on EWTN radio on topics from stem cell research and cloning to voting pro-life. Taylor has a B.S. in Biochemistry from University of San Francisco with a national certification in clinical Molecular Biology MB (ASCP).
