WASHINGTON (BP) -- The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a proposal to prohibit abortions based on a baby's sex.

House members were expected to vote on the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, H.R. 3541, either Wednesday night (May 30) or Thursday. Passage will require a two-thirds majority because the House will consider the measure under "suspension of the rules."

The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) urged its constituents in a May 29 email alert to ask their representatives to support the ban.

In the email, ERLC President Richard Land said the proposal constitutes "basic civil rights protection for the unborn."

"Astonishingly, no such federal ban on sex-selection abortion exists -- even as studies show these types of abortions are occurring here in the United States," Land said.

"It is high time that Congress enacts this common-sense ban."

While China and, to a lesser extent, India have become known in recent decades for the practice of sex-selection abortion by parents in an attempt to have a male baby after the birth of a girl, there is evidence of such a pattern among some immigrant communities in North America.

A March 2008 study published in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences found American-born children of Chinese, Korean and Asian-Indian parents were more likely than those of white parents to be boys if the first children in the families were girls, according to ABC News. The third child in such communities was 50 percent more likely to be a boy if the first two children were girls. Read More