GOP bill on abortion fails in House

It would have barred abortions based on the gender of the fetus. Opponents saw racial undertones.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans provoked a fresh confrontation in the battle over women’s healthcare rights but failed to win approval for a bill designed to outlaw abortions based on gender.

The bill, aimed at families trying to avoid unwanted daughters, attracted the support of a majority of representatives but failed Thursday because it was considered under a procedure normally used for uncontroversial measures. It needed the votes of twothirds of the House. The vote was 246 in favor and 168 against.

The bill’s opponents said it had racist undertones because of indications that some Asian cultures were more likely to select their children based on sex.

Republicans hoped to force Democrats to go along with the measure, or put them in the position of having to explain why they shot down a bill Republicans said was designed to protect women. For the most part Democrats held the party line, decrying the measure as political theater and voting against it.

In debate before the House vote, Republicans said targeting female fetuses for abortion amounted to “gendercide” and a “war on women.”

“There can be no rights for women if we don’t allow them the right to life,” Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.) said in the debate Wednesday.

Firing back, Democrats criticized Republicans’ voting record on other women’s rights initiatives, including pay equality.

“It is another Republican intrusion into a woman’s right to choose,” Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) said.

Under the legislation, anyone who performed or pressured someone into getting an abortion based on the sex or race of the fetus could face five years in prison. Doctors and nurses who did not report suspected gender-based abortions could also face a year in prison and a fine. The woman having the abortion would be exempt from prosecution.

Data on gender selection in America is patchy, but research published in 2008 by Columbia University economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlundfound evidence of more boys being born to Chinese, Indian and South Korean American families who already had daughters.

Their findings were cited in the bill, and some opponents of the measure worried it had racist undertones.

For cultural and economic reasons, abortion based on gender is more common in some South and East Asian countries, particularly China and India.

Explaining his support for the bill, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) told a story about a soldier in India during World War II who rescued unwanted daughters dumped in the Ganges River.

“That culture has arrived here in this country,” he said.

Some Asian American groups worried that the law would lead to discrimination against Asian American women seeking abortions.