Moral Outcry

On March 26th, 2010 the Georgia Senate passed SB-529, the Coercion and Non-discrimination ban. With 33 yes’s to 13 no’s the bill passed through the Georgia Senate and now heads to the Georgia House of Representatives. The bill is a companion to House Bill 1155, the Prenatal Non-discrimination act. The House bill is partly based upon federal legislation that Arizona’s congressman, Trent Franks, introduced in the U.S congress.

This legislation seeks to make it a crime for anyone to coerce or solicit a woman to abort based on the race or sex of her child. It would also make it illegal for women to choose to abort based on those factors.

In the world today, prenatal sex selection is available and women are allowed to abort their baby based on the sex of their child. A recent article from The Economist titled “Gendercide: What Happened to 100 Million Girls?” reports on this tragic issue.

Dan Becker, President of Georgia Right to Life was quoted as saying “No child should be aborted because of his or her race, sex, or color. If it’s wrong to discriminate in the workplace, in housing and in education because of race or sex, it should be wrong to discriminate against a child because she was born the wrong sex”.  Becker continued ““It would appear that even pro-abortion advocates share this perspective” said Becker, “Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, recently stated, ‘Unfortunately with technology, parents are able to use sonograms to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply because they’d rather have a boy.’

Abortions based on race are also a common problem. Georgia has the highest number of black babies aborted every year. The Georgia Division of Health reports that in 2008 alone, 18,901 abortions were performed on black women. In that same year blacks made up 30% of the population in Georgia but accounted for 57% of the abortions.

Throughout the last decades countless black women have been pressured into abortion because of specific targeting from Planned Parenthood. There are also cases of women in Georgia who have been coerced into having abortions because they were pregnant with bi-racial children.

This bill highlights the fact that the majority of abortion clinics in Georgia are located in inner city neighborhoods where African-Americans and Hispanics reside. According to Catherine Davis, Director of Minority Outreach for GR2L “67% of abortions in Georgia occur in Dekalb and Fulton county, both places which are largely populated by minorities. She declares the high abortion rate in these counties is a direct result of coercion and solicitation from the abortion industry.

If passed this bill would crack down on these types of abortions. Anyone who sought to perform an abortion in attempt to the control the population of a specific race or sex would face legal ramifications. If convicted the abortionist who performed the abortion could face anywhere from one to ten years in prison. The bill also seeks to give women who have been coerced the opportunity to bring law suits against abortionists attempt to violate the law.

Planned Parenthood has made millions off of targeting minorities. For years we in the pro-life community have been the only ones really talking about this. Thankfully, things are starting to change. What was once hidden from the masses is now being exposed in a very public way. This Bill along with Georgia Right to Life’s “Endangered Species Billboard Campaign” is bringing the issue of racially motivated abortions to center stage. From the L.A times to the Washington Post, people are hearing the truth that “Black babies are an endangered species. God is answering our prayers and bringing darkness into the light. He is releasing truth and many are taking notice.

Georgia, a state which has suffered from much bloodshed is now becoming a powerful voice for LIFE in our nation.

Let’s keep SB-529 in our prayers. May it pass through the House and become law. May it take us one step closer to seeing the ending of abortion in our nation.