Doctors who grant American women abortions based on the sex of their foetus could be jailed for five years, under Republican plans that have opened a new front in the battle over reproductive rights.
Mitt Romney has said that Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalising abortion, should be reversed
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which was set to be voted on by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday, would outlaw sex-selection abortion in the US.
At present the practice is not explicitly banned, as it is in Britain, despite fierce opposition to all abortion in many parts of the country.
Trent Franks, the Arizona congressman proposing the measure, said on the House floor that a rising number of women wanting sons were having abortions when becoming pregnant with girls.
"The practice of sex selection is demonstrably increasing here in the United States," said Mr Franks, who did not provide detailed statistics.
The National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion pressure group, said the bill's opponents – many of whom accuse Republicans of waging a "war on women" – should consider "whether they wish to be recorded as being defenders of the escalating war on baby girls".
The plan is the latest in a series of Republican attempts to make it more difficult for women to terminate pregnancies. Mitt Romney, the party's presidential nominee, has said that Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalising abortion, should be reversed.
President Barack Obama's re-election campaign has already begun targeting him aggressively on the issue.
Opposition to sex-selection abortion was sharpened this week by the release of video footage, filmed undercover by conservative activists, of a woman being casually offered one by a Planned Parenthood clinic. The organisation said it had fired the employee involved and retrained staff.
Mr Franks stated that sex-selection abortion was increasingly common "especially but not exclusively in the Asian immigrant community," prompting Democratic claims that women from ethnic minorities would be unfairly targeted by the proposal.
"The bill would require doctors to police their patients," said John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat. "It limits a woman's right to choose and jeopardises her access to safe, legal medical care." It is likely that the Act will struggle to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Citing an unspecified study, Mr Franks said that male births "clearly exceeded biological variation" among "Chinese, Asian Indians and Koreans".
Abortions are generally more prevalent among ethnic minorities in the US.
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