Abortion ....I am deeply saddened by this

[HalfPastWine]

Here

The decision to have an abortion is a difficult one for anyone to make but to base the decision on gender is deeply saddening.

I found the "Bear Bile farm in China" far more upsetting, linked to on that page. :-(

Hi there, we've moved this into In the News.

This is why the whole law surrounding abortions needs to be changed.

strandedbear I agree.

It's a shame those people become parents at all but we have decided not to police the people who do become parents. Only the ones who decide not to.

While I think it is appalling that people would want to abort based on gender, I don't believe that any women should be forced to give birth to a child she doesn't want.

While I think it is appalling that people would want to abort based on gender, I don't believe that any women should be forced to give birth to a child she doesn't want.

That is absolutely heartbreaking. I just had my daughter three weeks ago, and she was in the neo natal unit for the first couple of days. Some of the wee babies were born prematurely and their mum and dads were just desperate for them to be ok. To think someone could choose to abort simply because it was the wrong sex, and that doctors condone this choice, is just awful. The laws on abortion really need to be over hauled.

scarlettsmummy all those babies were deeply, desperately wanted. Some babies are not wanted. Overhauling the rules on abortion doesn't make them more wanted

They are wanted by someone though.

If people felt they could give a child up for adoption as easily as they could go for an abortion, then a lot of lives would be saved. Once upon a time, abortion was a huge taboo, now it something that is not only accepted, but supported.

Mothers who give babies up for adoption don't get the same sort of support from society because of their descison, even though they are doing something far more difficult and far less selfish. That needs to change. People who don't want their babies should feel that adoption is just as valid an option as abortion, but they don't because they can't hide it in the same way that they can hide an abortion.

It's all wrong.

No, but we could change the number of weeks at which a termination can be carried out. To allow a baby (and that is what it is) to be aborted at 24 weeks, for anything other than a life limiting condition, is just barbaric and has no place in a civilised society. I fully understand the arguments for the rights of the mother, but lets think about the right of the child.

I'm not buying the woman's right to choose on this one. If you allow sex selective abortion (presumably at 20 weeks plus under normal NHS timings) then it automatically becomes the woman's fault that she has had a girl - she will be seen by her family as deliberately inflicting a sub-standard child upon them. Criminalising sex selective abortions in practice will protect women from this "choice", and just this once I think it needs to be the way we do it, for the sake of the mothers, the foetuses (whom I would give some limited interests in the matter after 20 weeks) and society as a whole (the UK won't end up with gender imbalance as a result of this but other countries have).

However, sex-selective abortion is merely a sad symptom of wider problems with the value given to women, and the real solution lies with societal change, education and the enforced criminalisation of dowries.

Doesn't help the woman who goes through pregnancy and childbirth though.

I agree that adoption should be championed more - as the brave move it is from the birth mother. But I also think abortion should be destigmatised. the picture the BBC used to illustrate this story made me seethe. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17136213 This is how abortion is presented - when it can be a legitimate choice and not a lifetime of trauma. I'm not arguing for the type of termination in this story but I would rather see terminations than unwanted babies.

"that is absolutely heartbreaking. I just had my daughter three weeks ago, and she was in the neo natal unit for the first couple of days. Some of the wee babies were born prematurely and their mum and dads were just desperate for them to be ok. To think someone could choose to abort simply because it was the wrong sex, and that doctors condone this choice, is just awful. The laws on abortion really need to be over hauled."

with all due respect, and as someone who has had both an abortion and a baby in neo natal, nothing in this article suggests the law needs to be overhauled. It just needs to be stuck to.

Dilys, so its that attitude that we need to change. I totally agree with margoandjerry. I'm furious that people would abort a baby for being the wrong sex. Doesn't mean that I think the mother should be forced to give birth to a child she doesn't want.

Definitely lissielou, but in the short term I feel that decriminalisation or non-enforcement would actually lead to a lot of women being pressured into having late abortions they don't want, which is to my mind, worse (though it's a tough call either way).

I personally would give up being able to find out gender during the scan if it stopped this practice.

A know a few people who's parents (mainly fathers) were disappointed that they were girls but having discussed this issue with them agree that they would have preferred the chance to live than be aborted.
I am definately pro-abortion in some circs but not this.

Women can already get an abortion because it could be damaging to their mental health. That is the official reason most abortions are carried out.

Banning sex selective abortions would do nothing, because the women who want to abort based on gender will still be able to say exactly the same as what other women already do when they want an abortion. They just wouldn't spell it out that they would have kept the pregnancy had they been carrying the right sex child.

The 24 week limit is way too high. It is sickening that it is legal for women to terminate at that stage. I realise that most abortions happen much earlier than that, but it's wrong that the law allows it that late.

Maybe if they brought the limit down to something that isn't quite as bad, the number of sex selective abortions would go down as a side effect becaue people wouldn't be able to tell what they were having.

Dilys, but its a practice that is happening anyway. I agree with tralala, maybe stop sexing scans (and fwiw, I believe that this is one of the issues with the privatisation of the health service, customer is king - for the right price) but don't take away the womans right to abort.

In Glasgow they will not tell you the sex during a scan to reduce this sort of nonsense.
Why are doctors approving abortion for this reason?

I am pro choice and believe in a mother's right to decide. Given that the 20 week scan can sometimes happen later thnan 20 weeks and if there is a problem it may take a few weeks to get a termination booked in busy hospitals, I think the 24 limit needs to remain for life limiting conditions in the baby. However, if you are terminating for any other reason I think the date should be brought forward to around 18 weeks (or whatever reasonable timescale would allow for a termination to be carried out after a bad amnio outcome). That would prevent terminating on the grounds of gender as others have suggested.

Also I don't buy the whole, "women should not have to give birth to a baby they don't want" argument.

Granting abortion because the feotus is a girl, is society colluding in the idea that women have lower status - and that is just unacceptable. We all have rights but we also have laws and guidelines which allow us to live in a civilised society - sometimes the right of the individual not to give birth to a girl baby should be superseded by a wider responsibility to society not to condone the idea that girls are of lower value than boys.

sorry 'foetus'

I don't think that the limit should be changed. In an ideal world we wouldn't need abortion and fertility would be doled out according to those who want, and those who don't. But we don't live in an ideal world, and I would imagine that very few women would choose to abort a foetus at 18+w because it is the wrong sex (and not always because its a girl, one example given was a boy) why take away the choice for the many based on the actions of a few? Do we really want to make things harder for the woman who finds out at 21w that her child has a condition which means that if it is alive at birth, it will die soon after?