Saturday, June 30, 2012

A ban that I could really get behind.

Finally, a ban is suggested for a practice that makes my stomach turn. Sex-selection abortion. As in, a woman already has a boy or a girl at home, then finds out she's expecting another of the same, so she terminates. As in, the crap China has in place. Yes, not only is this going on here in the US, but now, the House has REJECTED a ban to stop these types of abortions.

As you all know, I find abortions acceptable in a number of situations. If a girl was being responsible and "life" just happened to her and she honestly CANNOT afford a child, I think it's acceptable (if it's done early....not reason to knowingly wait until 20 weeks for an abortion). If a condition is uncovered where the baby is suffering, or will suffer, I think it's appropriate for a family to be able to make that decision. Of course, if the life of the mother is at risk...by all means. But to terminate a pregnancy because you didn't want one more boy or you didn't want a girl? Seriously? How shallow have we become, as a society that we would throw away a child for such a reason? The least these women could do is carry the baby and adopt him/her out. I can't wrap my brain around this.

How do you feel about this?

3 comments:

  1. My colleague Joe would call this post and example of "The Cultural Double Standard" regarding abortions for disability vs. sex selection. You are horrified by sex selection abortion because you live in a Western country where women have a lot of freedom and the idea of one gender being preferable to the others is known to be wrong.

    Disability, like gender, is a form of diversity. Hence, abortions performed to address non-fatal disabilities are selective abortions, just like those done to address gender. A woman aborting for gender is no more "shallow" than one aborting for Down Syndrome. Both kinds of abortion involve a judgement about the life the child would live and the exercise of a preference not to embrace that life.

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  2. I'm still going back to levels of severity for this issue. While one disability such as Downs may be a mild case, another (along with related complications) can be fatal. And regardless, I feel that a woman should have the right to choose. But aborting because you wanted a girl and got a boy, or vice versa....no.

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  3. Contemporary surgical precedures for complications related to Down Syndrome have a 97% likelihood of success. COULD a child fall into that 3 percent and die after such a surgery is performed? Sure. But, in most cases, Down Syndrome becomes fatal only when the parents decide that it's going to be, by withholding surgery.

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