I 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1822 
To prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or race, 
and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 31, 2009 
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona (for himself, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. AKIN, Mrs. 
BACHMANN, Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina, Mr. BOOZMAN, Mr. BROUN 
of Georgia, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. COLE, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. 
FORBES, Mr. FORTENBERRY, Mr. GARRETT
of New Jersey, Mr. 
HUNTER, Mr. KING of Iowa, Mr. LAMBORN, Mr. LATTA, Mr. LINDER, 
Mr. LIPINSKI, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. MCHENRY, Mr. PENCE, Mr. 
SCALISE, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. SMITH of New Jersey, Mr. SMITH of Texas, 
Mr. SOUDER, Mr. TAYLOR, and Mr. WILSON of South Carolina) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Ju-
diciary 
A BILL 
To prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis 
of sex or race, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Susan B. Anthony and 
Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 
2009’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress makes the following 
findings: 
(1) SEX DISCRIMINATION FINDINGS.— 
(A) Women are a vital part of American 
society and culture and possess the same funda-
mental human rights and civil rights as men. 
(B) United States law prohibits the dis-
similar treatment for males and females who 
are similarly situated and prohibits sex dis-
crimination in various contexts, including the 
provision of employment, education, housing, 
health insurance coverage, and athletics. 
(C) Sex is an immutable characteristic, 
and is ascertainable at the earliest stages of 
human development through existing medical 
technology and procedures commonly in use, in-
cluding maternal-fetal bloodstream DNA sam-
pling, amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling 
or ‘‘CVS’’, and medical sonography. In addition 
to medically assisted sex-determination carried 
out by medical professionals, a growing sex-de-
termination niche industry has developed and is 
marketing low-cost commercial products, widely 
advertised and available, that aid in the sex de-
termination of an unborn child without the aid 
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of medical professionals. Experts have dem-
onstrated that the sex-selection industry is on 
the rise and predict that it will continue to be 
a growing trend in the United States. Sex de-
termination is always a necessary step to the 
procurement of a sex-selection abortion. 
(D) A ‘‘sex-selection abortion’’ is an abor-
tion undertaken for purposes of eliminating an 
unborn child of an undesired sex. Sex-selection 
abortion is barbaric, and described by scholars 
and civil rights advocates as an act of sex-based 
or gender-based violence, predicated on sex dis-
crimination. By definition, sex-selection abor-
tions do not implicate the health of the mother 
of the unborn, but instead are elective proce-
dures motivated by sex or gender bias. 
(E) The targeted victims of sex-selection 
abortions performed in the United States and 
worldwide are overwhelmingly female. The se-
lective abortion of females is female infanticide, 
the intentional killing of unborn females, due to 
the preference for male offspring or ‘‘son pref-
erence’’. Son preference is reinforced by the low 
value associated, by some segments of the world 
community, with female offspring. Those seg-
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ments tend to regard female offspring as finan-
cial burdens to a family over their lifetime due 
to their perceived inability to earn or provide fi-
nancially for the family unit as can a male. In 
addition, due to social and legal convention, fe-
male offspring are less likely to carry on the 
family name. ‘‘Son preference’’ is one of the 
most evident manifestations of sex or gender 
discrimination in any society, undermining fe-
male equality, and fueling the elimination of fe-
males’ right to exist in instances of sex-selection 
abortion. 
(F) Sex-selection abortions are not ex-
pressly prohibited by United States law and the 
laws of 48 States. Sex-selection abortions are 
performed in the United States. In a March 
2008 report published in the Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences, Columbia Uni-
versity economists Douglas Almond and Lena 
Edlund examined the sex ratio of United 
States-born children and found ‘‘evidence of sex 
selection, most likely at the prenatal stage’’. 
The data revealed obvious ‘‘son preference’’ in 
the form of unnatural sex-ratio imbalances 
within certain segments of the United States 
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population, primarily those segments tracing 
their ethnic or cultural origins to countries 
where sex-selection abortion is prevalent. The 
evidence strongly suggests that some Americans 
are exercising sex-selection abortion practices 
within the United States consistent with dis-
criminatory practices common to their country 
of origin, or the country to which they trace 
their ancestry. While sex-selection abortions are 
more common outside the United States, the 
evidence reveals that female feticide is also oc-
curring in the United States. 
(G) The American public supports a prohi-
bition of sex-selection abortion. In a March 
2006 Zogby International poll, 86 percent of 
Americans agreed that sex-selection abortion 
should be illegal, yet only two States have pro-
scribed sex-selection abortion. 
(H) Despite the failure of the United 
States to proscribe sex-selection abortion, the 
United States Congress has expressed repeat-
edly, through Congressional resolution, strong 
condemnation of policies promoting sex-selec-
tion abortion in the ‘‘Communist Government 
of China’’. Likewise, at the 2007 United Na-
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tion’s Annual Meeting of the Commission on 
the Status of Women, 51st Session, the United 
States’ delegation spearheaded a resolution call-
ing on countries to eliminate sex-selective abor-
tion, a policy directly contradictory to the per-
missiveness of current United States’ law, 
which places no restriction on the practice of 
sex-selection abortion. The United Nations 
Commission on the Status of Women has urged 
governments of all nations ‘‘to take necessary 
measures to prevent . . . prenatal sex selec-
tion’’. 
(I) A 1990 report by Harvard University 
economist Amartya Sen, estimated that more 
than 100 million women were ‘‘demographically 
missing’’ from the world as early as 1990 due 
to sexist practices, including sex-selection abor-
tion. Many experts believe sex-selection abortion 
is the primary cause. As of 2008, estimates of 
women missing from the world range in the 
hundreds of millions. 
(J) Countries with longstanding experience 
with sex-selection abortion—such as the Repub-
lic of India, the United Kingdom, and the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China—have enacted complete 
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bans on sex-selection abortion, and have stead-
ily continued to strengthen prohibitions and 
penalties. The United States, by contrast, has 
no law in place to restrict sex-selection abor-
tion, establishing the United States as affording 
less protection from sex-based feticide than the 
Republic of India or the People’s Republic of 
China, whose recent practices of sex-selection 
abortion were vehemently and repeatedly con-
demned by United States congressional resolu-
tions and by the United States’ Ambassador to 
the Commission on the Status of Women. Pub-
lic statements from within the medical commu-
nity reveal that citizens of other countries come 
to the United States for sex-selection proce-
dures that would be criminal in their country of 
origin. Because the United States permits abor-
tion on the basis of sex, the United States may 
effectively function as a ‘‘safe haven’’ for those 
who seek to have American physicians do what 
would otherwise be criminal in their home coun-
tries—a sex-selection abortion, most likely late- 
term. 
(K) The American medical community op-
poses sex-selection abortion. The American Col-
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lege of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, com-
monly known as ‘‘ACOG’’, stated in its Feb-
ruary 2007 Ethics Committee Opinion, Number 
360, that sex-selection is inappropriate for fam-
ily planning purposes because sex-selection ‘‘ul-
timately supports sexist practices’’. Likewise, 
the American Society for Reproductive Medicine 
has opined that sex-selection for family plan-
ning purposes is ethically problematic, inappro-
priate, and should be discouraged. 
(L) Sex-selection abortion results in an un-
natural sex-ratio imbalance. An unnatural sex- 
ratio imbalance is undesirable, due to the in-
ability of the numerically predominant sex to 
find mates. Experts worldwide document that a 
significant sex-ratio imbalance in which males 
numerically predominate can be a cause of in-
creased violence and militancy within a society. 
Likewise, an unnatural sex-ratio imbalance 
gives rise to the commoditization of humans in 
the form of human trafficking, and a con-
sequent increase in kidnapping and other vio-
lent crime. 
(M) Sex-selection abortions have the effect 
of diminishing the representation of women in 
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the American population, and therefore, the 
American electorate. 
(N) Sex-selection abortion reinforces sex 
discrimination and has no place in a civilized 
society. 
(2) RACIAL DISCRIMINATION FINDINGS.— 
(A) Minorities are a vital part of American 
society and culture and possess the same funda-
mental human rights and civil rights as the ma-
jority. 
(B) United Sates law prohibits the dis-
similar treatment of persons of different races 
who are similarly situated. United States law 
prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in 
various contexts, including the provision of em-
ployment, education, housing, health insurance 
coverage, and athletics. 
(C) A ‘‘race-selection abortion’’ is an abor-
tion performed for purposes of eliminating an 
unborn child because the child or a parent of 
the child is of an undesired race. Race-selection 
abortion is barbaric, and described by civil 
rights advocates as an act of race-based vio-
lence, predicated on race discrimination. By 
definition, race-selection abortions do not impli-
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cate the health of mother of the unborn, but in-
stead are elective procedures motivated by race 
bias. 
(D) No State has enacted law to proscribe 
the performance of race-selection abortions. 
(E) Race-selection abortions have the ef-
fect of diminishing the number of minorities in 
the American population and therefore, the 
American electorate. 
(F) Race-selection abortion reinforces ra-
cial discrimination and has no place in a civ-
ilized society. 
(3) GENERAL FINDINGS.— 
(A) The history of the United States in-
cludes examples of both sex discrimination and 
race discrimination. The people of the United 
States ultimately responded in the strongest 
possible legal terms by enacting constitutional 
amendments correcting elements of such dis-
crimination. Women, once subjected to sex dis-
crimination that denied them the right to vote, 
now have suffrage guaranteed by the 19th 
amendment. African-Americans, once subjected 
to race discrimination through slavery that de-
nied them equal protection of the laws, now 
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have that right guaranteed by the 14th amend-
ment. The elimination of discriminatory prac-
tices has been and is among the highest prior-
ities and greatest achievements of American 
history. 
(B) Implicitly approving the discriminatory 
practices of sex-selection abortion and race-se-
lection abortion by choosing not to prohibit 
them will reinforce these inherently discrimina-
tory practices, and evidence a failure to protect 
a segment of certain unborn Americans because 
those unborn are of a sex or racial makeup that 
is disfavored. Sex-selection and race-selection 
abortions trivialize the value of the unborn on 
the basis of sex or race, reinforcing sex and 
race discrimination, and coarsening society to 
the humanity of all vulnerable and innocent 
human life, making it increasingly difficult to 
protect such life. Thus, Congress has a compel-
ling interest in acting—indeed it must act—to 
prohibit sex-selection abortion and race-selec-
tion abortion. 
(b) CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY.—In accordance 
with the above findings, Congress enacts the following 
pursuant to Congress’ power under section 2 of the 13th 
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