By Gabriella Landeros
As the House of Representatives considers the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act” to ban sex-selection abortions and require doctors to report a woman to authorities if they suspect her of doing so, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) spoke for many Democrats by warning that it puts lawmakers in a sticky situation.
With most proponents of the bill being against abortion no matter what, Hoyer stated, “I think this has come up because someone has decided politically that it was a difficult place to put people in, because again, any interpretation in voting against this bill is therefore for abortions for the purpose of selecting gender would be wrong, period.”
Although Hoyer is against abortion based on gender, he feels that when it comes to abortion alone, “a woman and her doctor gotta have the choice of what alternatives she wants to choose.”
It puts medical personnel in a difficult position as well, Hoyer warned, with a five year penalty if they don’t report a sex-selection abortion. Hoyer explained that doctors have to base their assumptions on the woman’s reasoning for an abortion, but if found out later they were lying, doctors are the ones getting penalized.
