If passed by the Senate, a Florida ban on race- and gender-selective abortions will be enacted Oct. 1.
House Bill 845, also known as The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, requires abortion providers to sign an affidavit stating they are not performing the abortion based on an unborn child’s gender or race.
Knowledge that an abortion is due to a child’s gender or race, or actively participating in that kind of an abortion, will leave the provider liable of a third-degree felony and up to a $10,000 fine, according to the bill.
A Florida House of Representative’s committee voted in favor of the ban, reaching a 10-7 decision this month. House representatives presented the bill for a third reading Wednesday.
“It’s a bill that would further limit people’s ability to get abortions in Florida,” said Kylie Lacusky, a 19-year-old UF telecommunication and history sophomore and an officer for Voices for Planned Parenthood.
In a 2006 Johns Hopkins University study, 42 percent of clinics that offered gender-distinguishing tests performed abortions for sex-selection and nonmedical reasons. About half of the clinics, the study showed, performed the abortions based on “family balancing,” or choosing how many sons and daughters a family will have.
Abortion has been selective since the beginning of time, said Tania Studstilll, executive director of the Women’s Resource and Medical Clinic of Gainesville. Son preference is one of the most prevalent forms of sex or gender discrimination, which fuels the elimination of a female’s right, according to the bill. Race-selective abortion, an elimination of an unborn child because the child or a parent of the child is of an undesired race, is seen as racial discrimination, according to the bill.
Kimberly Glass, a 19-year-old UF political science freshman, said she supports the ban and that there is a greater focus on abortions based on gender rather than race.
“We can’t allow discriminatory behavior to perpetuate throughout society,” she said.
