A recent editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by Dr. Rajendra Kale raises the issue of sex-selection abortions. In his article, “‘It’s a girl!’—could be a death sentence”, Dr. Kale points to cultural preferences in Asian immigrants to Canada that are resulting in abortions based on the revealed sex of a fetus. Sex-selection abortions, where the abortions are or are not performed is determined by whether the fetus’ sex matches the sex preference of the parents, are almost always performed in cases when the fetus is female.
Dr. Kale writes, “Female feticide,” that is, the abortion of female fetuses, “happens in India and China by the millions, but it also happens in North America in numbers large enough to distort the male to female ration in some ethnic groups” (CMAJ article). A January 16 article in the Toronto Star may strengthen Dr. Kale’s point, pointing to a disparity in the gender ratio amongst Indo-Canadians (932 girls for every 1000 boys in the Indo-Canadian population under 15-years-old, compared with 953 girls for every 1000 boys in the general population). A small American study of 65 immigrant women from India found that, of these women, 40% had aborted pregnancies with female fetuses and “89% of the women carrying female fetuses in their current pregnancy pursued an abortion” (CMAJ article). These findings, suggests Dr. Kale, can be assumed true of statistics in Canada as well.
Sex-selection abortion is “discrimination against women in its most extreme form” and action should be taken “to save thousands of girls in Canada”. To reduce the number of females that are aborted, Dr. Kale proposes that the sex of a fetus should not be revealed until week 30 of the pregnancy, when an “unquestioned abortion” is almost impossible.
Dr. Kale is correct in identifying sex-selection abortions as discriminatory and a “repugnant practice”. It is “evil” and it “devalues women”; however, not everyone can (or will) say so. In fact, those who argue abortion is morally neutral territory (that is, anyone who identifies themselves as being ‘pro-choice’) deny that a fetus is a person at all. As such, anyone who, as an advocate for a woman’s right to choose, is in favor of abortion essentially denies any rights to female fetuses. In a strange bit of irony, in an attempt to uphold a woman’s right to choose, many women surrender any means of speaking against female sex-selection abortions since they have argued that a fetus is not a person and it has no rights. If the fetus is just tissue, than what difference does it make if all female fetuses were aborted?
But, a fetus is more than just tissue (otherwise sex-selection abortions would not be viewed as an issue by some in the Canadian medical establishment) and it does make a difference when females are selectively aborted. It is a horrendous evil against women—and against humanity—to suggest a pregnancy might be terminated simply because that child will one day bear children rather than sire them.
Dr. Kale suggests that postponing the revelation of non-essential medical information will curb female feticide; however, this will not be the case. His proposal is not strong enough. If someone is going to abort a 19-week old fetus because she is female, what will stop a mother from aborting that same fetus at 30-weeks? Even if a parent must wait until week 30 and cannot obtain an “unquestioned abortion”, no legal grounds have been introduced in Canada to prevent a parent from aborting that fetus for any reason whatsoever. Perhaps the couple decides they’d rather give birth to a child in September, when the temperature is cooler, than in the humidity of July. What grounds could they be stopped on? Or, perhaps their horoscope suggests it would be a bad time to give birth now and so they seek to terminate the pregnancy. Who could stop them? Similarly, who could stop a parent, even at 30 weeks, from terminating a pregnancy simply because the fetus will grow up to be a woman?
It is evil that anyone would destroy a female, simply because she wasn’t a male. Unfortunately, too many have too little to say when it comes to female sex-selection abortions—and the value of women—because they would refuse these unborn women their rights.
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