Sex-selection abortion

In the 1970's, abortion pushers achieved victory beyond their wildest dreams, limited abortion and/or abortion on demand. At this time, only one percent of geneticists believed that abortion for sex selection was morally acceptable, and this small minority generally kept their opinions to themselves for obvious reasons. By the late 1980's, the number of geneticists approving of sex-selection abortions had jumped considerably, and this trend shows no signs of abating.

THE NEW ANDROLOGISTS

Dozens of sex-selection clinics have sprung up all over the United States and Europe since the mid-1980s. These clinics offer amniocentesis solely for the purpose of determining the preborn baby's sex by the 18th week of pregnancy. Chorionic villi sampling (CVS), a newer foetal diagnostic technique, can be used to detect foetal gender as early as eight weeks' gestation.

For example, see Dr. Morton A. Stenchever's letter entitled "An Abuse of Prenatal Diagnosis" on page 408, July 24, 1973 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Most of these same clinics, 'coincidentally,' of course, offer abortions for babies of the 'wrong' sex. So a brand-new medical discipline has sprung up in response to public demand: Andrology. Those doctors who specialize in determining the sex of children are called andrologists.

MISSING GIRLS

Right now, in almost any corner of the world, a baby girl is being killed just because she is a girl. Her mother may be rich or poor, educated or uneducated. One thing is certain: She is not alone. She is part of a growing global trend of sex selective abortion and infanticide that favors sons and proves deadly for daughters. The practice, once thought to be unique to China and India, is catching on in Central Asia, Latin America, and the rest of the world. In an era when girls can rightly aspire to unprecedented status alongside their brothers, why are more parents choosing not to let them live?

Even the controversial United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which promotes fertility decline and abortion, estimated in 2007 there are between 60 million and 100 million "missing girls" worldwide. What is missing from the analysis, however, is acknowledgment that international institutions like UNFPA, created after World War II to foster development, are key drivers of the unfolding tragedy through their promotion of fertility decline as a prerequisite for human development, and fertility control as an international human right.

This fact should give us pause the next time we hear a U.N. official tell us that the advancement of women is a top priority.

Throughout human history, demographers tell us, nature has provided about 105 male births for every 100 females. This "sex ratio at birth"-stable across generations and ethnic boundaries-may range from 103 to as high as 106 boys for every 100 girls. In only one generation, that ratio has come unglued. 

View this video on India's missing girls

ABORTION ACCEPTANCE IS THE CAUSE

Even the American Medical Association (who are stridently pro-choice) have commented as far back as 1976...

"A sad irony now confronts the feminists who fought so hard and so long to make abortion on demand legally available. Abortion is increasingly being used to end the life of healthy unborn infants just because they are not of the sex their parents prefer. And almost all of the unborn babies being aborted for no reason except that they are of an unwanted sex are female ... It's a Pandora's Box of potential trouble, and it was abortion, with the insistence on the legal right to eliminate human beings unwanted for any reason, that opened the lid first." Signs of Trouble Ahead. American Medical Association News, 22/11/76     

 

MOVIE ON MISSING GIRLS

A documentary film by Shadowline Films (released late 2011) tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters' lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.

 

The pro-abortion movement approves

Most pro-abortion and pro-choice advocated pretend initially that they are shocked by sex-selection abortions. But in reality, their logic of choice eventually comes to the forefront. As the abortionists say, this is much more aesthetically pleasing than the dirty and bothersome task of strangling a struggling newborn baby with your bare hands and burying her cold, bruised little body in the parched ground. Seeing a glorious opportunity for a few thousand quick rupees, these 'champions of women's rights' immediately set up amniocentesis clinics all over India, and advertised with slogans like "Better 500 rupees now than 500,000 later," referring to the contrasting costs of abortion and a dowry at a later date.

Dr. Jaswant Singh of the Rohtak Medical College says that "The doctors who are doing this [amniocentesis and abortion] have stopped all other kinds of medicine. This is all they are doing. They are making a lot of money."
Edward A. Gargan, New York Times News Service. "Ultrasound Changes Face of Third World." The Oregonian, December 15, 1991

"Abortion for sex selection in the eighth month may not be good, but that is for people themselves to decide."
Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist. Quoted in Lisa Andrusko. "What Are "Sex-Selection" Abortions?" National Right to Life News, March 14, 1985, pages 3 and 10

"I would never use it, and my wife and I would never use it. However, to deny such a test raises serious questions - such as, is the geneticist imposing his personal bias on someone else?"
Dr. M. Neil MacIntyre, Professor of anatomy and human genetics at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. Quoted by J.L. Lazarevic. "Ethics Bug Scientist in Child Sex Choice." The Pittsburgh Press, February 29, 1976

"It is sometimes ethical to let parents choose their children's sex."
John Robertson, acting chairman of the ethics committee for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, September 2001

The fundamental principle

The essence of the pro-life position regarding sex-selection baby-killing was summarised quite competently and accurately by writer Jo McGowan in the February 28, 1989 issue of Newsweek Magazine;

"Which abortion is not 'selective?' The handicapped foetus of the mother who only wants a perfect baby, the third child of a mother who only wants two, the unplanned baby of a mother who wants total control of her life __ all of these can be 'selectively' aborted ... Perhaps from the undeniable truth that it is wrong to kill a baby simply because it is a girl, will emerge the larger truth that it is wrong to kill a baby at all."

 

LINKS

• Demographics
• Gendercide in India - read on article on CNN World
• Abortion investigation: doctors filmed agreeing illegal abortions 'no questions asked'