Challenge To Law Banning Abortions Based On Race Or Sex Of The Child Thrown Out

October 04, 2013

A Federal judge Thursday threw out a challenge to a 2011 state law that bans abortion, based on the race or sex of the child.

The NAACP and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum had challenged the law, claiming its premise that Asian women abort girls because they prefer boys, and black women are more likely to be talked into terminating a pregnancy, was based on racial stereotypes.

But Judge David Campbell ruled only someone who has been harmed by the law has the legal status to challenge it in court. He said stigma and degradation were not enough. Even though that leaves open the possibility of a challenge by someone who is affected, attorney Casey Mattox of the anti-abortion Alliance Defending Freedom says he thinks that too would fail.

“When you're talking about lives being eliminated for discriminatory reasons, nothing in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence protects that,” Mattox said.

But while the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision did not deal with race or gender-based abortions, the court did spell out the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy for any reason prior to the viability of the fetus.