ACLU, NAACP File New Lawsuit Saying Bill To Prevent Race-Based Abortions Is Racist

Ben Johnson : Jul 18, 2014
LifeSiteNews.com

"The purpose of this bill is to prevent discrimination. We are trying to stop the heinous discrimination that ends with the murder of a baby inside the womb because she is going to be born the wrong gender or the wrong race." –Rep. Montenegro

The ACLU has asked a federal appeals court to throw out an Arizona law banning sex-selective and race-based abortions, claiming the law is itself racist. (Photo via LifeSiteNews.com)

Lawyers asked the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most overturned appeals courts in the nation, to reconsider the lawsuit filed on behalf of the NAACP and the National Asian-Pacific American Women's Forum.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed the "Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011," making Arizona the first state to ban abortion based on racist or sexist discrimination. Abortionists violating its terms face a maximum 3.5 years in prison and the loss of their medical license. Any medical professional in the abortion industry who conceals such a violation faces a $10,000 fine.

But its opponents claim the law is based on racial stereotypes, and thus, a law to prevent racial discrimination is a form of discrimination.
Alexa Kolbi-Molinas of the ACLU said the state's black and Asian residents now "must endure the humiliation of living under a government that views them as a threat to American values simply by virtue of alleged character flaws possessed by persons of their race."

A federal judge dismissed the case last October, saying the groups lacked the legal standing to sue. Now the ethnically based organizations are floating a new legal argument: The rhetoric of the bill's sponsors may have hurt the feelings of legally privileged minority groups.

During his fight to pass the measure, Arizona Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, said that those who wish to see babies aborted due to their race are "the people behind genocides." He also noted a higher minority abortion rate and the practice of gendercide around the world.

The ACLU and its litigants consider these statements intolerable.