Maryland Rep. Roscoe Bartlett is just the latest to weigh in on whether or not women can be impregnated through rape or have the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy conceived through violent assault. But unlike some of his more strident anti-choice colleagues, he’s willing to let them make their own choice, since it’s such as small number of women, as opposed to what he claims is the large number of women choosing sex selection abortion.

Via Think Progress:

“Oh, life of the mother – exception of life of the mother, rape and incest. Yeah, I’ve always — that’s a mantra, you know, I’ve said it so often it just spills out,” he said. “If you really – there are very few pregnancies as a result of rape, fortunately, and incest — compared to the usual abortion, what is the percentage of abortions for rape? It is tiny. It is a tiny, tiny percentage.” …. [I]n terms of the percentage of pregnancies, percentage of abortions for rape as compared to overall abortions, it’s a tiny, tiny percentage,” Bartlett said. […]

“Most abortions, most abortions are for what purpose? The just don’t want to have a baby! The second reason for abortion is you’d like a boy and it’s a girl, or vice versa. And I know a lot of people are opposed to abortion who are pro-choice,” Bartlett said.

Alleged gender-based abortions have become an odd fixation for anti-choice politicians within the last year, especially since the LiveAction “sting” meant to offer Congress a guise to add more scrutiny on abortion providers and open up a line of questioning as to why a woman is seeking a termination. But as studies have shown, there is no indication that sex selection is widespread in the United States and civil rights groups see potential “solutions” as being nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to limit abortion access for communities of other ethnicities.