By Howard Fischer
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-958766.mp3
Phoenix, AZ – The legislation would make it illegal for a doctor to perform an
abortion knowing the woman was terminating a pregnancy because of
the gender or race of her unborn child. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said
this is a problem in countries like China which limit the number
of children -- but not here.
(We do not have any kind of systematic either cultural or legal
system that makes it unlikely for individuals to want to have a
child who is either male or female. It simply does not exist in
this country. And therefore this legislation, I believe, is
misleading in implying that somehow there is an attempt to
regulate the sex of one's unborn child.)
But Sen. Nancy Barto said a study of U.S. families of Asian
descent shows that when the first two children are girls, the
odds of the third child being a boy is 50 percent higher,
suggesting parents were using abortion to select gender. The
issue of race goes to claims that Planned Parenthood accepts
donations from people who want funds used to abort minority
babies. Sen. Don Shooter read a letter from the Frederick
Douglass Foundation.
(Arizona is not unlike most states in America when it comes to
abortion. Although blacks are less than 5 percent of Arizona's
population, they obtain 30 percent of the abortions, more than
six times the representations in the population.)
But 2009 figures from the state health department show abortions
to African American women at only about 7 percent of the total.
For Arizona Public Radio this is Howard Fischer.