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The Forum > Article Comments > The global abortion bind > Comments

The global abortion bind : Comments

By Joseph Chamie, published 13/6/2008

A woman’s right to choose gives way to sex-selection abortions and dangerous gender imbalances.

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The horrible unspoken taboo in this practice is that... the current social order makes the responsibility of females more work.

Its the daddy conspiracy, as many quite rightly point out.
Posted by trade215, Sunday, 15 June 2008 4:50:54 PM
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Sorry, but this article conflates two arguments into one. This paper would get a big fat Fail in any undergruadute course at a University.

There is absolutely no 'abortion bind' between supporting legal abortion and condemning abortion for reasons of gender. They are two entirely separate issues. Throwing in that red herring did not fool many posters.

The societies mentioned, India and China, can be accused of many things, but not of being run by those championing the rights of women to make any choice. On the contrary.

These women are being forced by their societies, especially their husbands, to make these choices. Females are seen as less worthy than males. Previously, and still to this day, girl babies were deliberately killed, left to die, or dropped off at an orphanage. Abortion is just one more method of doing away with a worthless female.

That societies like this still exist demonstrates that the work and education by feminists is not over for a long time yet.

The only plus, if there is one, is that the value of women, because of their scarcity could actually go sky-high, which means that women (or their parents) can afford to be extremely choosy when selecting a husband.

A bit of a back fire really for these patriarchal societies. In a televised investigation I noted that choosy and financially independent young women in China are not willing to settle down with just any male.
Posted by yvonne, Monday, 16 June 2008 5:46:39 PM
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Yvoone,
It didn’t take long. As a feminist you would have been trained to think “choice” (for the woman), but saying that having more baby girls killed than baby boys is acceptable, because it gives women more choice in who to marry, is probably the most repulsive and degenerate thing I have heard a feminist say in some time.

It seems that feminists regard unborn babies as worthless if they are to be aborted, but not worthless if they are unborn baby girls.

I’m still waiting for a feminist to mention the difference in life expectancy between males and females in India, and almost every other country.
Posted by HRS, Monday, 16 June 2008 6:56:41 PM
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Yvonne said:

"There is absolutely no 'abortion bind' between supporting legal abortion and condemning abortion for reasons of gender. They are two entirely separate issues. Throwing in that red herring did not fool many posters."

Since you appear to have misunderstood the premise of the article, let me explain it again. You are to right to say that they are two different things, the author say that himself. The point though, as has been made ad nauseam already on this thread already by myself and others, is that if your position is that the woman's right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy is absolute (as per Australia, 2008), then it makes ABSOLUTELY no difference, in practical terms, what the reason for a termination is.

Hence, whilst most of us agree that sex-selective termination is reprehensible (not all on this thread), the point is that under current arrangements, it is irrelevant. You don't NEED a reason.

He doesn't conflate two arguments at all - he says that holding one view leads to an inevitable consequence - sex-selective abortion. Read what he said for heaven's sake, there is every reason to believe he is pro-choice himself:

"On one hand, they support a woman’s right to choose to have a safe and legal induced abortion. On the other, they oppose sex-selective abortion, which in most instances discriminates against female fetuses and produces socially adverse gender imbalances."

It is instructive that you have managed to infer that through your obviously hard-line feminist perspective. He is merely saying that sex-selective termination is an unfortunate consequence of current policy.

Get it? Your knee-jerk analysis gets a big fat F.
Posted by stickman, Monday, 16 June 2008 8:12:27 PM
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HRS and Stickman, may I respectfully suggest that both of you read the article again.

Why do you think women would want to abort a female, but happily go through with a pregnancy when she is having a male baby? Hatred of her own gender, fear of giving birth to a feminist?

Just get over your own silly opinions of feminism in general and ask why would a woman not want to give birth to a girl, but prefers a boy.

Throwing feminism into this debate is another silly, silly and useless point.

This article, if it was to be of any worth should have stuck to what is at the heart of the matter: female infanticide.

Whether through abortion, dropping her into the gutter, smothering her or any of the many ways that female babies are done away with.

The author is not remotely concerned with female infanticide. The title of his article is: The Global Abortion Bind. He is blaming the access to safe abortion with the male/female ratios being out of wack.

The author is not at all concerned with the fact that women are pressured to abort female babies.

The author couldn't care less about girl babies or women's conditions in these countries. So get off your high horses as if there was any concern expressed. He waffles on about ABORTION.
Posted by yvonne, Monday, 16 June 2008 10:36:30 PM
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"fear of giving birth to a feminist?" Ohhh funny, Yvonne :)

Stickman, “You don't NEED a reason. ”
You got that part right. These women have no real choice because they are very strongly influenced by their misogynist environment and ‘choosing’ to give birth to a girl has a very negative effect on their and their daughters' lives.

If we just put the abortion part of this debate aside for a moment, to show those-who-still-don’t-get-it, that there ARE two separate issues here, and make this about gender choice only.

Imagine that men would have the choice to determine the sex of a fetus by taking a pink pill that would stimulate x sperm production only and so a girl would be created, or a blue pill that would stimulate y sperm production only and a boy would be created.

Men would have a real and fair choice in a world where men and women were valued equally. They probably wouldn’t care much about the sex of their child and would let nature take its cause. Or perhaps there would be a handful of men who would swallow a blue pill if they already fathered 2 girls and would like a son, or vice versa.

But now imagine that these pills existed in a society where boys had no value, and many were killed straight after birth, perhaps dropped in a pan of boiling water, or left in the hot sun to die, or neglected when sick. He’d be just an extra mouth to feed, he wouldn’t be educated and would, in the end, impoverish his family especially since his family would have to come up with a big dowry for the bride’s family.
Would you say that these men have a real choice in determining the sex of their offspring? Wouldn’t they prefer the sex of their child to be female? The blue pill would become a bitter pill to swallow.
Would they need to justify or find a reason for their choice of the pink pill?

Isn’t that reason obvious already?
Posted by Celivia, Monday, 16 June 2008 11:08:07 PM
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