Over the past five years, more than 60 sex-selection abortion bills have been introduced both at state and federal levels. These bans, often proposed in the context of race or with legislation that includes race-selection bans as well, are steeped in stereotypes that are designed to provide an entry-point into banning abortions entirely. In South Dakota, for example, lawmakers proposed the state’s sex-selection abortion ban in response to changing demographics, claiming an increase in Asian immigrants would fuel an increase in acceptance of sex-selective abortions. Meanwhile, in Arizona, lawmakers attempted to use harmful racial stereotypes against Black women to justify its ban, citinghigher rates of abortion among Black women as evidence that women of color were being coerced into having more abortions than other women as part of some racist plot.
The new report, Replacing Myths with Facts: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States, identifies six major inaccuracies commonly associated with legislation seeking to ban sex-selection abortions. It is the product of extensive legal research and empirical analysis of U.S. birth data and fieldwork in India as well as an extensive review of academic work.
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