South Dakota Senate Committee Passes Ban on Sex-Selection Abortions

State   |   Dave Andrusko   |   Mar 5, 2014   |   8:00PM   |   Pierre, SD

After a false start earlier this week, the South Dakota Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 5-2 today to pass out to the floor a bill to ban sex-selection abortions. This version of HB 1162 was slightly amended from the language over which the committee deadlocked 3-3.

The South Dakota House of Representatives passed the bill last month. That 60-10 vote came less than a week after the House Judiciary Committee voted 9-3 in favor of the measure to ban abortions based on the baby’s gender.

sexselectionabortion4“We’re faced with a moral urgency,” said state Rep. Jenna Haggar, the bill’s primary House sponsor. “Sex discrimination is wrong at every age.”

“It is so clearly wrong to kill an unborn baby simply because she is ‘the wrong sex,’” said Mary Spaulding Balch, JD, the director of state legislation for National Right to Life. “Unfortunately, sex selection abortions are occurring in the United States and all over the world.”

Balch added, “ Sex selection abortions should be unacceptable in a nation committed to women’s equality and human dignity. Passage of this bill is South Dakota will reflect that sentiment.”

Knowing the widespread abhorrence of sex-selection abortions, pro-abortionists tried to argue that the bill “profiled” Asian-American women.

But State Rep. Haggar explained that the “bill has nothing to do with race,” adding, “These abortions are wrong. They’re wrong in any and every culture.”

Haggar also noted that advancements in gender testing allow parents to learn the sex of a fetus earlier than ever, explaining, “we would be naive to think that this type of abortion could not happen here and right now.”

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This egregious form of discrimination is already banned in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Arizona, North Dakota and Kansas .

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in his Natioanl Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.