A bill that critics say was unnecessarily targeting Asian women and would have banned abortions based on the sex of the child has been defeated, reports LA Weekly.
The bill by Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) would have made it illegal for doctors to knowingly perform an abortion on a mother who didn’t want a baby girl.
“It’s free in California,” Brian Johnston of the California Pro-Life Council said. “You don’t have to be a resident. You don’t have to be a citizen.”
Miriam Yeung, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, accused Grove of ” … increased scrutiny around our motives for seeking abortion care. This scrutiny exploits racial stereotypes and encourages racial profiling by inciting doctors to assume an AAPI woman is seeking an abortion because of the sex of her fetus.”
The bill failed to make it out of the lower house’s Committee on Health.
You can read more about this controversy in LA Weekly.
