Franks in the News -- Week of 5/27/12
Date: June 1, 2012
By: Congressman Trent Franks
The real War Against Women. The U.S. House of Representatives will vote today on a bill seeking to penalize abortionists who knowingly help women carry out gender-selective abortions. The bill was fast-tracked last Friday, so it will need support from two-thirds of the House, rather than a simple majority, to pass. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., who WORLD featured a couple of months ago, sponsored the bill, which comes to the floor just as another undercover video surfaces from the pro-life group Live Action. The video appears to show Planned Parenthood workers knowingly helping a woman prepare to abort her child based on its gender. According to Live Action, the Planned Parenthood employee advises the undercover investigator to wait until the fourth or fifth month of her pregnancy to have the abortion, since gender can be difficult to determine before then. (Look for La Shawn Barber’s Commentary column later today on this topic.)
One of the leading “pro-choice” groups is actively opposing a bill Congress will consider tomorrow that would ban sex-selection abortions in the United States. Apparently choice extends to choosing whether or not to kill your baby when she is the wrong gender.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC,) one of the nation's largest pro-life organizations, has been raising awareness for the issue and urging House representatives to approve the measure, called the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA, or H.R. 3541), sponsored by Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.)
Live Action reports that in the past four years six studies have indicated that there are thousands of “missing girls” in the United States, many due to sex-selective abortions. China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Australia, the United Kingdom and Vietnam all have banned the practice. The United States with the exception of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Arizona does not.
Republicans long ago lost African American voters. They are well on their way to losing Latinos. And if Trent Franks prevails, they may lose Asian Americans, too.
Groups opposed to abortion rights are turning charges of a GOP "war on women" against Democrats who are opposed to legislation meant to ban sex-selective abortions.
Sex-selective abortion (SSA) has a long history in countries such as India and China, but recent studies show that it has also spread to America. As Rep. Joe Pitts (R., Pa.) mentioned on Wednesday, “A Columbia University study found evidence that sex selection at the prenatal level is happening right here in the United States.”
The bill was originally called the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act. By naming it after two pioneers in women's rights (Susan B. Anthony) and racial equality (Frederick Douglass), the name highlighted both the gender and race protections in the bill.
"History and eternity will condemn a 'no' vote on this bill," said Representative Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican who sponsored the bill.
In an interview with The Daily Caller, the bill’s author, Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, noted that the bill received an “overwhelming majority” of votes but that the cognitive dissonance on the Democratic side of the aisle represented a significant challenge.
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), H.R. 3541, of 2012 would ban sex-selective abortions, the victims of whom are overwhelmingly female. The bill's author, Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said before the vote that whatever the outcome, the point would be made that "When people vote on this, the world will know where they really stand."
The measure's author, Rep. Trent Franks (Ariz.), responded by calling Obama "the abortion president."
"There has never been a more pro-abortion leader in the White House in history of the United States," Franks said a press conference Thursday.
To me, Milbank is headed out on a dangerous limb. It’s one thing to say that the GOP is targeting minorities to harm them, a common but often false liberal claim. It’s one thing to say Franks is going after a non-issue, another common (if generally false) claim by the left regarding pro-life legislation.
