More frequently these days, news stories sound just Orwellian.

Like this CNN piece: ‘House debates abortion ban for sex of fetus.’ Really?

One of the most divisive issues in politics is set to take center stage in Congress on Thursday as the House of Representatives votes on a measure banning abortions based on the sex of a fetus.

Have we really descended to that?

Supporters characterize the proposal as a necessary defense of the civil rights of unborn children; opponents consider it part of a broader so-called “war on women” and an ongoing assault on legalized abortion.

Full stop.

Somebody has got to stop this “war on women” nonsense before it’s taken more seriously, or allowed to be hijacked as a concept taken even remotely seriously, rather than the transparent political strategy it has become since the announcement of the HHS mandate.

So back to the ‘abortion ban on gender selection’ story…Opponents ‘consider it part of a broader war on women’? Who are they worried about? The mother who gets an abortion or the baby girl whose life is terminated?

That House measure failed to pass, believe it or not.

A bill to outlaw abortions based on a child’s gender received a strong majority of votes in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday but failed to gain the two-thirds margin of support needed for passage.

The House voted 246-168 in favor of H.R. 3541, known as the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA)…

The bill would make it a federal offense to knowingly perform a sex-selection abortion or coerce a woman into such a procedure, or to transport a woman across state lines or into the United States to obtain a sex-selection abortion. The woman herself is not liable for prosecution.

President Obama had announced his opposition to the measure a day earlier, claiming that the bill would result in “subject[ing] doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine” a sex-selection motivation. The National Right to Life Committee criticized the excuse by pointing out that the bill explicitly bars requiring abortionists “to inquire as to the motivation for the abortion” if it were unknown to them.

The AP explained it bluntly.

The House on Thursday fell short in an effort to ban abortions based on the sex of the fetus as Republicans and Democrats made an election-year appeal for women’s votes.

The legislation would have made it a federal crime to perform or force a woman to undergo a sex-based abortion, a practice most common in some Asian countries where families wanting sons abort female fetuses…

“It is violence against women,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., of abortions of female fetuses. “This is the real war on women.”

More here, and more to come.