I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 147 
To prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or race, 
and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 3, 2017 
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona introduced the following bill; which was referred to 
the Committee on the Judiciary 
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 ‘‘Prenatal Non-
discrimination Act (PRENDA) of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress makes the following 
findings: 
(1) SEX DISCRIMINATION FINDINGS.— 
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(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 of males and females who are 
similarly situated and prohibits sex discrimina-
tion in various contexts, including the provision 
of employment, education, housing, health in-
surance coverage, and athletics. 
(C) Sex is an immutable characteristic as-
certainable at the earliest stages of human de-
velopment through existing medical technology 
and procedures commonly in use, including ma-
ternal-fetal 
bloodstream 
DNA 
sampling, 
amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling or 
‘‘CVS’’, and obstetric ultrasound. In addition to 
medically assisted sex determination, a growing 
sex-determination niche industry has developed 
and is marketing low-cost commercial products, 
widely advertised and available, that aid in the 
sex determination of an unborn child without 
the aid of medical professionals. Experts have 
demonstrated that the sex-selection industry is 
on the rise and predict that sex selection will 
continue to be a growing trend in the United 
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States. Sex determination is always a necessary 
step to the procurement of a sex-selection abor-
tion. 
(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. Sex-selection abortions are typi-
cally late-term abortions performed in the 2d or 
3rd trimester of pregnancy, often after the un-
born child has developed sufficiently to feel 
pain. Substantial medical evidence proves that 
an unborn child can experience pain at 20 
weeks after conception, and perhaps substan-
tially earlier. 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 
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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-
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 or the 
laws of 46 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 
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