The wholesale slaughter of unborn girls that has ravaged countries like China, India, and Korea is perhaps the most characteristically modern tragedy, perfectly fitted to a fleshless Internet age. There are no stacks of bodies, no horrified crowds of onlookers, no fiery speeches. Just bureaucracy, choice, and a chilling absence.
But that absence is undeniably present, and will become more present to the public mind thanks to Mara Hvistendahl’s new book Unnatural Selection. Jonathan Last’s review provides some powerful data from the work:
In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. This ratio is biologically ironclad. Between 104 and 106 is the normal range, and that’s as far as the natural window goes. Any other number is the result of unnatural events.
Yet today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, the number is 121—though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. China’s and India’s populations are mammoth enough that their outlying sex ratios have skewed the global average to a biologically impossible 107. But the imbalance is not only in Asia. Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120.
What is causing the skewed ratio: abortion. If the male number in the sex ratio is above 106, it means that couples are having abortions when they find out the mother is carrying a girl. By Ms. Hvistendahl’s counting, there have been so many sex-selective abortions in the past three decades that 163 million girls, who by biological averages should have been born, are missing from the world. Moral horror aside, this is likely to be of very large consequence.
The chaos that could very well result from multiple countries having huge populations of poor rural (and urban, for that matter) men and no women on the scene is hard to overestimate. The inherent instability of groups that skew unnaturally male, combined with the impending population collapse in China thanks to the One-Child policy and population collapse in Russia, Japan, and much of Europe thanks to a culture of sexual selfishness, could result in a very changed global landscape in a hundred years.
Hvistendahl adduces a host of other problems resulting from the absence of girls, both in the short and long term. So the problem is clear: sex-selective abortion has led major portions of the globe down a rabbit hole from which there may be no escape. The solution? Abortion!
[Hvistendahl] believes that something must be done about the purposeful aborting of female babies or it could lead to “feminists’ worst nightmare: a ban on all abortions.”
It is telling that Ms. Hvistendahl identifies a ban on abortion—and not the killing of tens of millions of unborn girls—as the “worst nightmare” of feminism. Even though 163 million girls have been denied life solely because of their gender, she can’t help seeing the problem through the lens of an American political issue. Yet, while she is not willing to say that something has gone terribly wrong with the pro-abortion movement, she does recognize that two ideas are coming into conflict: “After decades of fighting for a woman’s right to choose the outcome of her own pregnancy, it is difficult to turn around and point out that women are abusing that right.”
Late in “Unnatural Selection,” Ms. Hvistendahl makes some suggestions as to how such “abuse” might be curbed without infringing on a woman’s right to have an abortion. In attempting to serve these two diametrically opposed ideas, she proposes banning the common practice of revealing the sex of a baby to parents during ultrasound testing. And not just ban it, but have rigorous government enforcement, which would include nationwide sting operations designed to send doctors and ultrasound techs and nurses who reveal the sex of babies to jail. Beyond the police surveillance of obstetrics facilities, doctors would be required to “investigate women carrying female fetuses more thoroughly” when they request abortions, in order to ensure that their motives are not illegal.
Hvistendahl has given the world an invaluable document about the costs of abortion, and its uncontrollable effects. Even her refusal to accept the logical conclusion of her own argument – that abortion is the worst human rights disaster of the contemporary age – is a powerful testament to the habits of mind that make abortion a sacred cow.
The abortion-rights movement begins with a single a priori commitment: that choice is the highest value. This spurious first principle is why the often serious and altruistic desire of abortion activists to help women ends up with bizarrely horrible conclusions like 163 million dead women. If choice conquers all, then life and death will just have to adapt as best they can.
Aristotle and Aquinas spoke often about how small errors at the beginning become cavernous pits of mental contradiction in the end. Pro-choice advocates would do well to learn from their wisdom. Turns out first things still matter.
June 22nd, 2011 | 11:32 am
Is the problem actually abortion, or how it’s being used?
If there were a pill men could take that would cause them to only produce sperm with a “Y” chromosome, it would appear that would lead to the same results – fewer girls born. There’d be a market for such a pill.
The cause in either case is the attitude that girls are worth less than boys. Address that underlying issue and the sex-ratio problem will resolve itself.
(That’s not to say that abortion isn’t massively overused now; I’m just noting that the problem here is the goal it’s being used as a tool to serve.)
June 22nd, 2011 | 12:06 pm
“The cause in either case is the attitude that girls are worth less than boys. Address that underlying issue and the sex-ratio problem will resolve itself.”
It is clear that misogynistic attitudes contribute to this holocaust of female babies. However, the “first thing” that underlies this entire situation is that the child (male or female) is “worth less” than the choice of the mother (or parents, or society, etc.) This is the fundamental cause. Any unjust preference of or selecting for a child’s sex is secondary to this more fundamental and satanic attitude.
June 22nd, 2011 | 12:36 pm
I am as pro-choice as they come and it’s very vexing to read such articles. In India last year, where I come from, nearly a million female fetuses were aborted. The reasons for this feticide are deeply cultural. It’s ridiculous over-simplification to say that women are abusing their reproductive rights. It’s not a matter of using neat terminologies like pro-choice or pro-life. Abortions have been legal for the past 40 years and abortions in themselves have not been a contentious issue, the way it is here in the US. Sex selective abortions should be seen as an extension of the female infanticide issue that plagued the country for several decades(it continues in some parts of the country), prior to the easily availability of ultra sonography to determine the sex of the fetus. I can’t speak for what happens in China, but sex selective abortions in India is a complex issue that cannot be tidily used as an argument against pro-choice HERE or in India. Doing so is a sham and it’s utterly deplorable. Sadly, it seems to be the trend these days in the news. For example:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/08/sex-selective-abortion-misogyny
What the author conveniently leaves out is that the sex selective abortion issue that the UK is now facing is because of the large population of South Asians who follow this abominable practice. I am sorry for sounding so bitter but such articles, not only do they appropriate the issues of my country for their own pro-life agenda here, they derail the debate and subvert the work done by so many dedicated feminists here.
Suggesting that abortions should me made illegal to prevent female feticide is regressive and goes against a woman’s basic right. Not just that- if such a ban is implemented in India, thousands of illegal centres for abortions will spring up(as witnessed in the past) potentially risking the lives of millions of women who seek these terminations.
June 22nd, 2011 | 12:58 pm
Mamta, with respect to your personal experience and acknowledging that this issue (like most controversial issues) should not be oversimplified, I do not agree with your contention that this is being “appropriated” for selfish political reasons. As Martin Luther King often reminded us, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Millions of female babies getting aborted in India, China, Armenia, etc. is a crime not just against those babies or those societies, it’s a crime against humanity. As a human, I not only have the right but also the duty to speak against it, as does any other human. “No man is an island…”
Finally, I reiterate that your first principle in this debate is a “woman’s basic right”. How about the 163 million aborted girls’ basic right to life? Which right is more fundamental, more “basic”? Are the lives of those 163 million baby girls “worth less” than the choice of their mothers, parents, society, etc? Put more simply, are their lives “worthless”?
June 22nd, 2011 | 1:10 pm
Mamta: Hmmm. I think you may be missing the point here. No amount of complexity or weight of social conditioning eliminates the brute fact: unborn girls are getting slaughtered by the millions because their parents want boys. As a husband and the father of 2 daughters, this habit of offing girls, whatever its origin in economics or culture or other beliefs, is horrifying and tragic.
Your approach is to go ahead and let the females be eliminated in the womb so that they won’t suffer discrimination once they are adults – well, look at your own argument: the ready availability of abortion is being used *precisely* to end the lives and reduce the numbers of girls and women. That’s ‘we must destroy the village to save it’ logic.
Of course, we must never lose sight of the other issues of justice and mercy – and the pro-life people I’ve been around never do lose sight of those issues – but it remains to be demonstrated that easy access to abortion in fact does mitigate other factors leading to the mistreatment of women and children in India and elsewhere. On the contrary, once girls are viewed as problems to be solved, rather than people to be honored, the floodgates are opened to any number of ‘solutions’, such as simply sterilizing India for it’s own good – and don’t think that idea isn’t out there. Hey, it’s a solution!
June 22nd, 2011 | 1:18 pm
I agree with Ray that abortion is just the tool: the causes have to do with the economic liability children are in the post-industrial revolution world.
That’s not going to be dealt with easily.
June 22nd, 2011 | 1:28 pm
Mamta need tobe read a little more closely before criticism:
“Sex selective abortions should be seen as an extension of the female infanticide issue that plagued the country for several decades(it continues in some parts of the country), prior to the easily availability of ultra sonography to determine the sex of the fetus.”:
That’s right. The same thing has been accomplished by infanticide for decades. It’s not the method that’s the problem, it’s the value placed on females culturally. Until that problem is addressed, there will always be a disparity accomplished by infanticide, underground abortion or some other method of early sex selection.
I’d like to hear from mamta if there are any potential solutions to have the parents recognize the inherent value of females in the relevant cultures.
June 22nd, 2011 | 1:40 pm
Steve, I think I need to make my stand clearer. Female feticides are abominable and they need to stop. It’s a systemic issue in the country that considers girl children as a burden to parents and the society at large. But putting an end to sex selective abortions is NOT at odds with the feminist agenda. This is where any westerner needs to be more culturally aware about what’s going on. I have always been a very vocal advocate to end this feticide. In India, unlike here, feminists understand that this IS a women’s issue and we battle to put an end to it. In fact, the campaign that I am part of is wholly run by feminists (http://50millionmissing.wordpress.com/). However, the solution is not to put the lives of millions of women at danger to save female fetuses. That simply won’t work. Terms that you only hear in the news like female infanticide or bride-burning are a huge reality for people out there; you need to connect a lot of dots to understand the implications of such an action.
You are absolutely correct when you say that this is a crime against humanity and that you have the right to speak against it. But at the same time, you, a well-intentioned person, need to look beyond data to understand the larger picture. I definitely do think that the west is appropriating this issue simply because they are presenting it out of context. You have no idea the number of pro-life groups that have come out, using Hvistendahl’s book, to push their agenda. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. They simply do not care to educate themselves about the conditions in India but they are ready to take up arms against abortion the minute they hear “163 million dead fetuses”. Righteous anger aside, I think ignorance about this issue is a serious threat to the people who work so hard in India to end this genocide.
June 22nd, 2011 | 1:47 pm
Joe McFaul, yes, female infanticide is a grave injustice. The abortion-on-demand industry facilitates this injustice. By Mamta’s own words: “Sex selective abortions should be seen as an extension of the female infanticide issue…” Is the solution to any injustice an “extension” of it? Thus, Joseph rightly points out the illogical reasoning of “destroy a village to save it”. Our goal should be to limit and ultimately eradicate the injustice of female infanticide, not to extend this injustice into the womb.
June 22nd, 2011 | 2:06 pm
Joseph, I am certainly not saying that aborting female fetuses will obviate the pain and suffering that they MIGHT go through when they are adults. Sorry, but that’s just ridiculous and I never implied that in any of my statements. I am merely imploring the west to leave aside debates on terms like pro-life or choice when dealing with this specific issue, because it’s not about just abortions.
Let me go over the solutions that have been attempted so far.
The most obvious and the immediate one is the Pre Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Tests Act (PCPNDT) Act, a 2001 Indian legislation which bans sex determination. Like all things else in India, sex determination continues because of unethical medical practitioners who get away with the crime because of poor law enforcement. Enforcement has always been India’s severe weakness but things are changing slowly. From isolated incidents of medical licenses being revoked, there is awareness in the society enough that urban doctors are scared to reveal the sex of the fetus. In my eyes, this is progress, but we definitely have a long way to go. Plenty has been written and discussed about how to make this law stricter.
The most controversial solution has been this: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/tn-cradle-baby-scheme-awaits-rebirth/156137-60-118.html. In an effort to save girl children, parents who consider their newly born daughters as a burden, can give them up for adoption and the state will take care of her welfare. Now something like this will shock most of you. This solution goes to prove that gender discrimination exists at life threatening levels. But nevertheless, it has saved lives. There are quite a few non-profit organizations that do the same. This is a desperate measure to save girl children.
But anyone reading these can understand that the struggle right now is to even allow these children to be born. This doesn’t solve the discrimination problem. Meantime, people like us and other women’s rights groups try to educate and create awareness among people the value of a girl. Having seen the ground reality of the situation, it’s terribly depressing, but we carry on, hoping that some day there will be change. Making abortions illegal is a nightmare situation for us- it would aggravate the suffering of millions of Indian women and THAT would be the equivalent of destroying the village (sadly, it might not even be metaphorical).
June 22nd, 2011 | 2:29 pm
For those of who you are interested in gaining SOME idea about what goes on behind the term ‘sex selective abortion’, I recommend you watch this documentary. It is insufficient in scope but enlightening in some aspects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krwqSgRuuSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PRRZwWwbQA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBUL4yWUs1w
For many of you, ‘dowry’ is just something that happens in the third-world countries. It’s not just a practice. It’s a mindset.
All these sudden discussions that have sprung up in the west about abortions in India, makes me wonder- thousands of women have died in bride burning, hundreds in sati, thousands in infanticide and millions abused; but only when it comes to abortions, the western world speaks up in righteous anger to talk about humanity. I wonder why this sudden humanitarian concern is so selective.
June 22nd, 2011 | 3:13 pm
Mamta, thank you for your information and willingness to engage in this important conversation. I am doing my best to educate myself while maintaining the appropriate level of humility. However, I would like to respond to a few of your points:
“I am merely imploring the west to leave aside debates on terms like pro-life or choice when dealing with this specific issue, because it’s not about just abortions.”
Any serious and intelligent pro-life advocate would not disagree with you at all here. No abortion is “just” or “only” about the abortion. It involves economic justice, just access to pre- and post-natal medical care, attitudes about sexuality in general in the society, responsibilities of the father and extended family, exploitation of the poor and marginalized by those who would profit from abortion, etc. This list could go on and on because justice and morality cannot be neatly compartmentalized (geographically, ideologically from issue to issue, or in any other way), which leads me to my next point:
“Meantime, people like us and other women’s rights groups try to educate and create awareness among people the value of a girl. Having seen the ground reality of the situation, it’s terribly depressing, but we carry on, hoping that some day there will be change.”
Pro-life groups are very simply trying to “educate and create awareness among people of the value of a [child, boy or girl]“. I agree that it’s terribly depressing, and I too gain strength by holding onto hope. Let me ask a serious question: is there any intrinsic difference between an Indian or Chinese woman who aborts a a female fetus and a woman who aborts a male fetus? Is the act intrinsically different? Is it more heinous for a female fetus to be aborted due to sex selection than a male fetus to be aborted due to any other reason? For that matter, is there an intrinsic difference between aborting a female fetus knowing her sex and aborting a female fetus when not knowing her sex (due to the law that you cited)? This causes me, at least, some very serious cognitive dissonance. The morality of an action stems from more than the intention and motivation. There is an intrinsic evil within every abortion around which pro-life advocates cannot negotiate and compromise. My point is that, at the very least in the long run, a grave injustice cannot be fought by tolerating, protecting, or promoting another grave injustice.
June 22nd, 2011 | 3:15 pm
Manta:
Honestly, even if the problem is cultural, abortion made it impossible to stop and made it even more widespread. The idea that the fetus isn’t human is what enables a lot more people to consider something that previously was murdering a child.
A mundane analogy. It’s a lot harder to convince someone to steal a CD from a store than it is to pirate it That’s because technology inadvertantly enabled such, and distanced people from the physical act. Abortion enables this, and even with the root attitude being cultural, technology has made it a scourge.
You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t look at that. Guess what? The fetus isn’t human, and the mother has the right to terminate it for any reason she likes. This is a pro-choice idea, its just people are waking up that it means that people can sex select for it.
June 22nd, 2011 | 3:41 pm
Mamta said:
“All these sudden discussions that have sprung up in the west about abortions in India, makes me wonder- thousands of women have died in bride burning, hundreds in sati, thousands in infanticide and millions abused; but only when it comes to abortions, the western world speaks up in righteous anger to talk about humanity. I wonder why this sudden humanitarian concern is so selective.”
You’re right to note this “selective” concern. But, as on many issues, the contradiction cuts both ways. Why does the feminist movement refuse to acknowledge the essential similarity between, to take one example, infanticide of baby girls and abortion of baby girls?
And I’ll point out one other problematic contradiction. You argue that looking at sex-selective genocide only as an abortion issue is simplistic, because so many other cultural mechanisms exist. Fair point. But then when you argue against anti-abortion laws in these countries, you say: “it would aggravate the suffering of millions of Indian women and THAT would be the equivalent of destroying the village.” Well, aren’t there plenty of other cultural variables that account for that suffering? And if so, why don’t feminists take a consistently pro-life approach by prohibiting abortion — regardless of sex — and focusing efforts on the other cultural variables burdening women?
June 22nd, 2011 | 5:01 pm
I can see that this discussion has taken an inevitable turn.
Arguing from ideological standpoints creates an illusion that choices in life are purely binary. Pro-life arguments, the more rational ones, may sound convincing to many, but on digging deeper, they mostly turn out to be fallacious. Abortions are excruciatingly painful, both physically and emotionally. I am yet to see a woman who cheerfully marches to Planned Parenthood, looking forward to have this painful procedure done. It is done after a lot of agonizing thought. It’s the result of having to make tough choices in life. Because without this tough decision, life could get a lot worse for both the mother and the child. These women can definitely do without having to bear the atrocious title of “murderers”. I hate to break this down this way, but if the child were to just walk away and be an independent adult right after childbirth, then in all likelihood mothers will not choose to abort. It’s to emphasize the point that having a child comes with tremendous responsibility and some just cannot afford that.
If we were to simply follow the pro-life argument that “all life is sacred” then we should be ashamed of sending our troops out to wars to save our lives at the cost of theirs. Now before you jump and say that the choice of the soldier was volitional, didn’t we just agree that ALL life is sacred and hence deserve to be saved? There is no one answer to these moral debates because it’s full of difficult choices, choices that do not make us proud either way. But I refuse to judge people who put their personal well-being ahead that of a fetus.
I respect your free choice of being a pro-life advocate. But what scares me most in this country is the militant advocacy that usually follows these debates. In a complex grey issue such as this one, it’s simply wrong to impose one’s opinions on others; especially when it is a matter of someone else’s body.
June 22nd, 2011 | 5:01 pm
Let me explain why I am pro-choice.
I have had two abortions. The first time, I was twenty and stuck in a dreadful marriage with an abusive husband. I frequently faced his rage in the most appalling ways possible. I was not working and I had no family other than him to support me. In such a time, I got pregnant. The choice was painful yet obvious to me. I could not think of bringing up a child and making him/her a part of my miserable existence. If it hadn’t been for that choice that I made long ago, I would probably not be in any condition to get out of that marriage and create an independent life for myself, let alone become the academic that I am today.
The second abortion was in a second marriage. I had mixed emotions when I found out that I was pregnant. Unfortunately, it was determined that the pregnancy was ectopic and had to be terminated right away. Did it matter whether the fetus was male or female? Of course, not. Was I depressed? You bet I was.
I had to share my personal story because most women have very similar things to say. Ideological arguments can happen on the side, but they do not help a woman raise a child that she cannot physically, emotionally, societally or monetarily afford. And I refuse to be crucified for this choice.
I realize that I am in a pro-life forum and my words are not going to convince anyone. It doesn’t matter. They had to be said any way and I have nothing more to offer to this discussion.
June 22nd, 2011 | 5:46 pm
Mamta,
Thanks very much for your comments and links. I appreciate the information and background. Armchair solutions are obviously not likely to be of much help.
June 22nd, 2011 | 5:54 pm
Resubmitting just in case
I can see that this discussion has taken an inevitable turn.
Arguing from ideological standpoints creates an illusion that choices in life are purely binary. Pro-life arguments, the more rational ones, may sound convincing to many, but on digging deeper, they mostly turn out to be fallacious. Abortions are excruciatingly painful, both physically and emotionally. I am yet to see a woman who cheerfully marches to Planned Parenthood, looking forward to have this painful procedure done. It is done after a lot of agonizing thought. It’s the result of having to make tough choices in life. Because without this tough decision, life could get a lot worse for both the mother and the child. These women can definitely do without having to bear the atrocious title of “murderers”. I hate to break this down this way, but if the child were to just walk away and be an independent adult right after childbirth, then in all likelihood mothers will not choose to abort. It’s to emphasize the point that having a child comes with tremendous responsibility and some just cannot afford that.
If we were to simply follow the pro-life argument that “all life is sacred” then we should be ashamed of sending our troops out to wars to save our lives at the cost of theirs. Now before you jump and say that the choice of the soldier was volitional, didn’t we just agree that ALL life is sacred and hence deserve to be saved? There is no one answer to these moral debates because it’s full of difficult choices, choices that do not make us proud either way. But I refuse to judge people who put their personal well-being ahead that of a fetus.
I respect your free choice of being a pro-life advocate. But what scares me most in this country is the militant advocacy that usually follows these debates. In a complex grey issue such as this one, it’s simply wrong to impose one’s opinions on others; especially when it is a matter of someone else’s body.
Let me explain why I am pro-choice.
I have had two abortions. The first time, I was twenty and stuck in a dreadful marriage with an abusive husband. I frequently faced his rage in the most appalling ways possible. I was not working and I had no family other than him to support me. In such a time, I got pregnant. The choice was painful yet obvious to me. I could not think of bringing up a child and making him/her a part of my miserable existence. If it hadn’t been for that choice that I made long ago, I would probably not be in any condition to get out of that marriage and create an independent life for myself, let alone become the academic that I am today.
The second abortion was in a second marriage. I had mixed emotions when I found out that I was pregnant. Unfortunately, it was determined that the pregnancy was ectopic and had to be terminated right away. Did it matter whether the fetus was male or female? Of course, not. Was I depressed? You bet I was.
I had to share my personal story because most women have very similar things to say. Ideological arguments can happen on the side, but they do not help a woman raise a child that she cannot physically, emotionally, societally or monetarily afford. And I refuse to be crucified for this choice.
I realize that I am in a pro-life forum and my words are not going to convince anyone. It doesn’t matter. They had to be said any way and I have nothing more to offer to this discussion.
June 22nd, 2011 | 9:03 pm
I blogged about Hvistendahl’s book at Satan’s Blog: http://wp.me/p14HPl-Vt. Guess how Satan views Hvistendahl’s book!
June 22nd, 2011 | 9:58 pm
Mamta — why not put the first child up for adoption?
(Treating an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion.)
June 22nd, 2011 | 10:23 pm
Mary, I hope that was not meant to be a serious suggestion. How can I live with myself every single day of my life, knowing that my child is somewhere out there ALIVE and struggling without mother’s love?
Both of us would lead tormented lives, me in my guilt and suffering, and him/her in rejection. The very idea is appalling to me. Knowing myself and the depression I’ve been through so far, I would probably not survive doing such a deed.
June 22nd, 2011 | 10:31 pm
I disagree with Gabriel Toretta and some readers about ‘the solution’ to the problem being banning all abortions. As Mamta says, every decision to have an abortion is a complex one and often saves lives (of the woman, possibly of her other children etc). The fetus is NOT a person, yet, and an abortion is NOT murder.
I don’t agree with ‘the solution’ being going after doctors and other practitioners. Throwing into jail the women who had the abortions is also not the solution. The often make the decision based on many pressures, and it is often not their ‘(free) choice’ to do so.
I totally agree with Mamta that the problem lies with attitudes towards girls and women, and ‘the solution’ is educating communities about the worth of women (and all human beings), and empowering women to improve their lives through education, and economic and political opportunities.
June 22nd, 2011 | 10:33 pm
“Because without this tough decision, life could get a lot worse for both the mother and the child.”
Yep, life could get a lot worse for the aborted child. Speaking of fallacious arguments…
“It’s simply wrong to impose one’s opinions on others…”
So I guess it’s wrong for me to be against rape. If you don’t like rape, then don’t rape. If you don’t like child abuse, then don’t abuse any children.
I could go on, but really, what’s the point?
June 22nd, 2011 | 10:50 pm
If there were a pill men could take that would cause them to only produce sperm with a “Y” chromosome, it would appear that would lead to the same results – fewer girls born. There’d be a market for such a pill.
Yes, but there wouldn’t be a heap of mangled bodies.
June 22nd, 2011 | 10:58 pm
I could not think of bringing up a child and making him/her a part of my miserable existence. If it hadn’t been for that choice that I made long ago, I would probably not be in any condition to get out of that marriage and create an independent life for myself, let alone become the academic that I am today.
I don’t see how that justifies taking the life of your own child.
June 22nd, 2011 | 11:00 pm
Mary, I hope that was not meant to be a serious suggestion. How can I live with myself every single day of my life, knowing that my child is somewhere out there ALIVE and struggling without mother’s love?
Of course it was a serious suggestion. Adopted children are secure and happy in their adoptive parents’ love. Adoptees with serious problems are those who were allowed to languish with abusive parents or other problems and only adopted as older children.
Both of us would lead tormented lives, me in my guilt and suffering, and him/her in rejection. The very idea is appalling to me.
On what ground do you based this statement, given that in fact adoptees and the women who placed them for adoption do, in fact, do just fine?
June 22nd, 2011 | 11:35 pm
“I am sorry for sounding so bitter but such articles, not only do they appropriate the issues of my country for their own pro-life agenda here”
Like every person who has a regard for equal rights for women, you seem display some amount of skepticism when the Religious Right shows up and expresses “concern” for women’s rights. Women have the right to remember how the Religious Right treated them in the years when women didn’t have their reproductive rights and found themselves in an unwanted pregnancy. The Magdalene laundries and other humiliations come to mind. Any thinking person looking at this situation realizes the best solution is pushing for gender equality. But let’s not do that, as this situation sounds like the perfect opportunity to present a case for making women stay pregnant against their will.
June 23rd, 2011 | 12:47 am
Mary, there’s a simple answer to my reaction. At the time of the abortion I was twenty and living in India. Life isn’t all that rosy for adopted children there. In fact, most of them don’t get adopted at all. A majority of children spend their entire childhood and adolescent ages in an orphanage relying on the generosity of a few rich people. A quick YouTube search on orphanages in India will give you an idea of their difficult, impoverished lives. I can never wish that for my child.
June 23rd, 2011 | 1:21 am
Mamta,
I’m an American and adopted two beautiful children from India. My children and I pray for their birth mother’s always, especially on their birthdays when we know she is thinking of them especially intensely. We pray that God will give her peace, and we believe he is doing just that. You would rather kill your child than live with the thought of giving it life for another woman to love. That is not cultural, that is personal, because we have a large network of friends who have adopted from India. Many Indian woman make the loving choice of adoption.
June 23rd, 2011 | 1:30 am
Mamta,
And I second that comment that an ectopic pregnancy disruption is NOT an abortion. The fetus cannot live inside the fallopian tube because the mother and child would both die from sepsis once the fetus grew large enough to burst the tube. You cannot transplant it to another location. You do not consider the surgical procedure to remove an ectopic pregnancy an abortion.
There is no moral dilemma in removing a fetus growing ectopically.
June 23rd, 2011 | 7:02 am
[...] Choice Omnia Vincit – Gabriel Torretta, First Things/First Thoughts [...]
June 23rd, 2011 | 8:14 am
“And I second that comment that an ectopic pregnancy disruption is NOT an abortion.”
This is just Orwellian doublespeak. What’s your definition of abortion then? I completely agree with you that an ectopic pregnancy is morally permissible, but you need to call it what it is, and that is abortion. I was on another forum where a pro-life woman was raped and got an abortion, but she became insanely furious when I called it an abortion. Again, I wasn’t saying it wasn’t morally permissible, but what she did was an abortion.
June 23rd, 2011 | 8:19 am
Mary –
My point was that this particular use of abortion doesn’t make abortion itself wrong or right.
June 23rd, 2011 | 10:23 am
Jeremy,
There is a moral dilemma about aborting a child conceived through rape. It is immoral, as the child has a presumed (as most embryos will make it to the uterine lining) safe nest within the womb and you are killing an innocent victim. Any pro-lifer permitting abortion as a consequence of rape has very little moral credibility.
They technically call a miscarriage an abortion, yes, but Mamta was making it sound like she went through psychological hell making the decision to “abort” her ectopic pregnancy. Hogwash! Yes, it’s a disappointment, a grave disappointment to lose a child via ectopic implantation, but the surgeon is essentially making the decision. There is no moral dilemma. If Mamta were Catholic, she would not have to confess that she had an ectopic embryo removed surgically.
I presume you are not medical, otherwise you’d ditch that Orwellian cant.
June 23rd, 2011 | 11:37 am
Mary, there’s a simple answer to my reaction. At the time of the abortion I was twenty and living in India. Life isn’t all that rosy for adopted children there. In fact, most of them don’t get adopted at all.
I do not like it when people use personal stories in such a way that if one criticizes the argument made via the story, then one looks cruel. But you’re justifying having taken someone’s life simply because you created a life and didn’t want to take responsibility for it.
You suggest that you do your child a favor by killing him or her, because your life was so “miserable”. Yet you yourself did not choose death for yourself, so how can you argue that death is preferable than having a life that is not “rosy”?
June 23rd, 2011 | 12:28 pm
“There is a moral dilemma about aborting a child conceived through rape.”
Morality has no bearing on whether or not an abortion occurred. Whether a woman has an abortion because of rape, incest, imminent death of the fetus, an ectopic pregnancy, or sex selection, it’s still an abortion. You can argue whether it’s moral or not, but don’t not call it an abortion. It’s doublespeak. If you don’t think that termination of an ectopic pregnancy that results in the death of the fetus is not an abortion, let me ask you this: Suppose a 100 years from now there is a perfect cure to handle ectopic pregnancies such that both the mother and fetus survive, yet the woman decides to have the exact same procedure as a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy does in 2011. Did the woman in the future have an abortion or not?
June 23rd, 2011 | 12:36 pm
Mamta, I hate to sound unsympathetic, but you seem to me to be the one arguing illogically and inconsistently here. First you echo the Western leftist schizophrenia about abortion, i.e., killing a fetus (you yourself used the term fetucide) because it is female is genocide (gendercide?), but killing it because it is inconvenient is ok. So a fetus is a person if it’s aborted for sex selection, but not if it’s aborted for convenience. Then a female fetus aborted for convenience is not a person, but a female fetus aborted for its sex is? Where I was educated, we call that a contradiction (a thing can’t be a and not-a at the same time).
Then you say you didn’t put your baby up for adoption because you couldn’t live with your child in an orphanage, but you _can_ live with killing it. Again, that’s very similar, if not identical, to the Western leftist argument that abortion is a positive good because it prevents children from living with a “poor quality of life.” So we should just kill any orphans or any babies born into circumstances of poverty? If killing a child before it is born to “save” it from a bad quality of life is permissable, by what logic is it not permissable to kill a child for the same reason after it is born? I don’t believe it is any of the commenters here that need a course in basic logic.
June 23rd, 2011 | 1:09 pm
@Mamta and her anti-abortion critics
We really use selective scrutiny of Mamta’s reproductive life. If Mamta had prevented a live birth by using the birth control pill, Plan-B, a condom, or simply by refusing a sexual encounter, we’d never be having this conversation about the potential lives of her offspring. It’s only because she walked into an abortion clinic and had a surgical abortion that we are discussing the “what ifs” of her reproductive life, or perhaps because the fetus made it past a certain magical mark in human development. The anti-abortion folks are amiss with questions like “what if these 2 fetuses had been born and become infants?”. But what about the child never brought into this world because Mamta was using the birth control pill back in April of 1998? The combinations of potential children that Mamta never birthed could populate India 100 times over, but we are just going to focus on these 2, because they made it to the 8th week of fetal development.
June 23rd, 2011 | 2:49 pm
“perhaps because the fetus made it past a certain magical mark in human development”
No, because it came into being, as opposed to not coming into being, as it would have had she not had the sexual encounter in question. The only situations in which the term “magical mark in human development” would apply would be abortifacient contraceptives such as Plan B, in which case most of us would in fact hold the same position, it’s just that the conversation would probably never have come up because those deaths happen in secret.
I don’t consider it the least bit arbitrary or strange to be more concerned about the destruction of a person who came into existence, than I am about the non-existence of one who never existed.
It’s not “potential children” we get concerned about, it’s actual ones who get destroyed.
June 23rd, 2011 | 5:04 pm
“(Treating an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion.)”
Depending on the method used to “treat,” it is an abortion in the Catholic church.
Under no circumstnaes, for example, is surgical remoal ever permitted.
June 23rd, 2011 | 7:04 pm
My point was that this particular use of abortion doesn’t make abortion itself wrong or right.
It can, however, demonstrate it. If farmers could check eggs and put only the female ones to brood because only those will lay eggs, no one would object because chicken eggs have no right to hatch, they can be prevented from hatching for any reason at all. To object to kiling the baby humans when they are female is to show that killing them for any reason at all is wrong.
June 23rd, 2011 | 7:12 pm
I do not like it when people use personal stories in such a way that if one criticizes the argument made via the story, then one looks cruel.
That’s why it’s done. The fallacy is argumentum ad misericordiam or appeal to pity.
But when evidence is submitted publically for consideration, you are entitled to consider it.
June 23rd, 2011 | 9:26 pm
“If Mamta were Catholic, she would not have to confess that she had an ectopic embryo removed surgically.”
She’d be excommunicated for having an abortion. That surgery is abortion and not permitted under Catholic teaching.
June 24th, 2011 | 10:08 am
Mary –
Not exactly. There is a case to be made that an early embryo with an undeveloped nervous system isn’t a person, a ‘baby human’, yet (which got hashed out here: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/04/07/fifteen-states-considering-banning-abortion-after-20-weeks-of-pregnancy/).
One can object to skewing sex ratios for invalid reasons (e.g. cultural stereotypes), no matter what the particular method used. That’s orthogonal to whether any particular method is wrong in itself.
June 24th, 2011 | 10:47 am
@Pentamom
Even though you won’t allow me to consider every potential newborn baby Mamta might ever have had, the fact that you are allowing me to consider every zygote is enough for my point to stand. As you know, the ordinary birth control pill can work to prevent a zygote from implanting in the uterus, and yet is not the zygote a “baby”?. If Mamta has used the pill for many years, then there could very well be 10 other fetuses that we are completely excluding from this discussion. If every fetus is worthy of our moral concern, then there is no reason to cherry pick the 2 fetuses just because they’ve reached 8 weeks of development and we happen to know the exact moment of their termination. Why can’t we ask the “what if” questions about these zygote “babies” as well? How many were aborted? Would they have been boys or girls? What kind of lives would they have had? Would it have been better to abort them or not?
June 24th, 2011 | 2:17 pm
Jeremy, I already covered all that when I said we’d object equally to abortifacient birth control methods, only we just wouldn’t know about it because it would have happened in secret and she probably wouldn’t have mentioned it. The principle is the same.
June 24th, 2011 | 5:08 pm
There is a case to be made that an early embryo with an undeveloped nervous system isn’t a person, a ‘baby human’, yet
Hmmm seems to me there could be a case made that anyone is “not human”.
It depends entirely on who gets to define “human”, eh?
Whatever that person or group holds as valuable gets to define who is or is not “human”.
Thus, the phrase “all men are created equal” – the presumption upon which my nation was founded, and from which it derives its legitimacy – becomes “all men* are created equal”….
…
* see fine print for details; some exclusions may apply
….and that’s not the same thing at all, is it*?
…
*or maybe it depends on which side you’re on – the one defining, or the one being defined by someone else?
June 25th, 2011 | 10:50 am
Ah, Blake – as if we haven’t gone over that territory before?
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/05/11/texas-to-require-sonograms-before-abortions/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/01/21/the-internal-consistency-of-abortion-absolutist-logic/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/01/21/abortion-and-the-argument-from-inhuman-sociopathy/
July 5th, 2011 | 10:38 am
[...] consequences of sex-selective abortion around the world (we’ve talked about her here and here), but all the while assuring readers that the catastrophic problems she’s describing [...]
July 5th, 2011 | 12:25 pm
[...] under-appreciated consequences of sex-selective abortion around the world (we’ve talked about her here and here), but all the while assuring readers that the catastrophic problems she’s describing [...]
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