Bill on sex-choice abortions passes Arkansas House

Legislation that would ban abortions on the basis of the fetus's sex passed in the Arkansas House on Tuesday.

No lawmakers spoke against House Bill 1434 before it passed in the chamber on a 79-3 vote. Opposing votes came from three Democrats, and six other members of the minority party voted present.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, presented it as a noncontroversial step that had been taken in other countries. But abortion-rights advocates have charged that details of the measure would draw out the process of getting an abortion if the sex of the fetus is known.

"Someone might argue, 'How big of any issue is this today, you can't even discover the sex of a child until you're almost to the point of Supreme Court-recognized viability,'" Collins said, before noting that technology is moving that point forward.

"The bottom line is it's just the right thing to do to have this in the law," Collins said.

Collins' bill would prohibit a physician from performing an abortion if the doctor determines the woman is seeking to end her pregnancy solely because of the sex of the fetus.

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In order to make that determination, the physician must spend "reasonable time and effort" to obtain all medical records related to the woman's pregnancy history. The bill does not specify what the doctor would do with that information, but Collins said the records would be evaluated to make a determination.

Planned Parenthood of the Great Plains, which operates two of Arkansas' three abortion clinics, does not ask women why they want to end their pregnancies, according to Ashley Wright, a state lobbyist for the group.

The Arkansas Department of Health, which publishes abortion statistics, does not track abortions performed on the basis of the fetus's sex.

"This bill is not about preventing any kind of gender discrimination," Wright said. "It places the doctor in a position of being an investigator and the woman a suspect."

Performing a sex-selective abortion would be a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

An Arizona law banning race and sex-selective abortions was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging it exploited racial stereotypes, but the lawsuit was dismissed in court.

Rita Sklar, the executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, said any bill that restricts access to pre-viability abortions is unconstitutional.

Her group has already promised to challenge recently passed legislation restricting the most common method of second trimester abortions, and Sklar has said further lawsuits will be considered.

Arkansas law bans abortions after the 19th week of pregnancy. There were 3,771 abortions performed in the state in 2015, according to the Health Department.

A Section on 02/15/2017