House Debates Banning Sex-Selective Abortions

[Frodo]

House debates bill to ban sex-selective abortions

By Shannon Bream
Published May 30, 2012
FoxNews.com

House members launched into a contentious debate Wednesday over a bill that would ban abortions performed on the basis of gender-selection.
 
Though sex-selective abortions are typically thought of as a problem in countries like China, bill author Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said Democrats and Republicans in the House agree that sex-selection abortions are occurring in the United States.
 
"The people of this country are overwhelmingly for this bill, and liberals are going to have to make up their mind whether they are so committed to abortion on demand that they think that includes killing little girls because they are little girls," Franks said.
 
Under his proposal, physicians who perform sex-selective abortions would face heavy fines and up to five years in jail.
 
The House, after closing out debate late Wednesday afternoon, is expected to vote on the proposal Thursday. It needs a two-thirds majority to pass.
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[Frodo]

A pro-choicer being against sex selective abortions is a hell of an oxymoron

Not if women's rights is more important to you than cultural relativism. 

[Frodo]

A pro-choicer being against sex selective abortions is a hell of an oxymoron

Not if women's rights is more important to you than cultural relativism.  

     Even though banning sex-selective abortions is a clear violation of women's rights?

It's hard for me to see how banning sex-selective abortions can violate women's rights when the vast majority of those being aborted in those procedures (especially among East and South Asian populations) are baby girls.  Especially when  you consider that these women are driven to abort them by the patriarchal cultural mores in which they are raised that deem sons as being more important than daughters.  

[Frodo]

A pro-choicer being against sex selective abortions is a hell of an oxymoron

Not if women's rights is more important to you than cultural relativism. 

     Even though banning sex-selective abortions is a clear violation of women's rights?

It's hard for me to see how banning sex-selective abortions can violate women's rights when the vast majority of those being aborted in those procedures (especially among East and South Asian populations) are baby girls.  Especially when  you consider that these women are driven to abort them by the patriarchal cultural mores in which they are raised that deem sons as being more important than daughters. 

     It's at best a poor substitute to actually undermining those patriarchal cultural mores. People frequently seem to think that a legal change is as good as a cultural change, which is a rather short-sighted view of the matter. The legal change can act as a bandage over the wounds of injustice, but it doesn't actually change anybody's mind.

To use another example, article 15 of India's Constitution bans discrimination based on caste, and though caste discrimination has diminished as India has modernized, it is still quite common in rural areas.  Since caste discrimination still exists, was it a pointless legal exercise to have banned such injustice?  Or was it important regardless to send a signal to the population that caste discrimination needed to end? 

I argue the same applies to the ongoing genocide being directed against female infants.  In time, the practice will end but it is important that we begin somewhere -even if it is initially just a legal statement.   

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It isn't much of a problem now, but at some point it could become one.  I see no reason why we can't take pre-emptive action now to indicate to incoming immigrants from East and South Asia that the United States does not approve of the murder of baby girls, and will do whatever is necessary to prosecute those who engage in such actions. 

[Frodo]

A pro-choicer being against sex selective abortions is a hell of an oxymoron

Not if women's rights is more important to you than cultural relativism. 

The whole idea behind people being "pro-choice" is that no one should be able to influence what a women decides to do with own her own body. It doesn't matter if what her motivation is convince, rape or incest so why is sex selective different? Or is it only a Women's choice when it's not inconvenient for the pro choice argument?

It's hardly a woman's free choice to abort her baby for whatever reason when she's been effectively brainwashed by her culture into believing that sons are far more valuable than daughters, and that therefore the latter should be aborted if at all possible.  That is where I draw the line in the sand.