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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

I’m firmly pro-choice but...

126 replies

Banana8080 · 17/09/2018 08:59

....I’m not ok with gender selection abortion ie girls.

But if I’m pro-choice then I shouldn’t be interested in motives at all... argh! I don’t know how to reconcile this with myself.

Labour announced today they’d stop early gender blood tests which prompted this post.

OP posts:
brookshelley · 17/09/2018 10:43

But there is no difference I can see between raising a boy or a girl.

This is really a problem limited to a few religious/cultural communities. In wider British culture you are right and I suspect very few sex-selective abortions are done just due to preference alone.

FanWithoutAGuard · 17/09/2018 10:45

What life will a girl have coming into a family that don't want girls / think they are of no worth etc?

Exactly this.

KoshaMangsho · 17/09/2018 10:49

In India where this is a massive problem the official solution is that you are not allowed to find out the sex of your baby. And if you do, or ask about it, you and your doctor could go to jail. There is a lot of literature on the MTP Act of 1971.
Also lots and lots of rich people in India have abortions for the above reasons. In fact in urban middle class India where people have two kids they want to make sure both are boys and they have access to clandestine doctors and ultrasounds. (Ultrasounds are heavily regulated in India).
As a practical system it doesn’t work. The moral/philosophical basis for it in a deeply misogynistic society is even more complicated.
ie should we bring girls into a world where they will be given consistently fewer freedoms and opportunities (as a best case scenario) and actively discriminated against and as a worst case scenario- abused or beaten? Is that right to uphold a universal ‘pro choice’ position?
Research suggests that sex selective abortions in the UK are a lot more common than people think.

placemats · 17/09/2018 10:49

A perfectly healthy, normal, well paid woman in a great job, relationship, home life etc, has an absolute right to an abortion, just like anyone else.

Her body, her choice. Always.

However, what is being missed is the society that makes it horrible for women to give birth to girls when it's well known it's the sperm that determines the sex, SEX, of the baby.

Have we drifted back to the Tudors and Henry VIII?

Labour are a disgrace in the way they have approached this.

The blame is always on the female even before birth.

KoshaMangsho · 17/09/2018 10:50

To clarify in India it isn’t just in early pregnancy, it is throughout the pregnancy that one is not allowed to find out the sex of the baby.

ScienceRoar · 17/09/2018 10:53

I don't necessarily see a conflict here, if it's the strong desire not to have daughters that upsets you.

As a thought experiment, imagine if there were a condom that only allowed Y-carrying sperm through. You could have only male offspring, without the need for abortion. Would you object to that?

grasspigeons · 17/09/2018 10:53

Who wants to be a daughter born to a family that values you so little any way. It seems as good a reason as any to me.
I don't really feel there is a middle ground with abortion. The foetus is either alive and has rights or it doesn't, the mother either has autonomy over her body or she doesn't.

FloralBunting · 17/09/2018 11:29

Well this is it, really. If your reason for supporting abortion is based on the autonomy of the pregnant woman, then you have no logical reason to object to sex selection as a valid reason the same as any other.

Like I say, I see the conflict, because abortion is considered a women's rights issue, and sex selection to abort girls goes against that point. But if the basis of the pro-choice argument is autonomy, then on what basis are we deciding which autonomous choices are unacceptable?

The decision to terminate a girl is rooted in misogyny, of course, and dealing with the misogynistic culture is probably important there (good luck with that, btw). But plenty of women terminate with very mixed up motivations. A child would make an education difficult. A child would complicate a relationship. A child would be financially problematic.

All of those motivations are connected to other things which are potentially misogynistic, and you could say that the important thing is to deal with the structural issues that mean the woman feels abortion is the best choice.

But you've already conceded the point that personal autonomy is the reason women should be able to have abortions. You don't have anywhere to go to say some abortions are acceptable, and some aren't.

Either abortion is about a woman's choice to have control over whether she gestates a baby or it isn't.

Seniorschoolmum · 17/09/2018 11:34

By making sex testing & selection illegal, do we offer women in the UK some protection, making it harder to access, and making it the law’s “fault” rather than the woman’s.

And by setting an example in the UK, do we sow the seed of sex selection being unacceptable, in other communities?

BreakWindandFire · 17/09/2018 11:43

controlling women through denying them access to medical care to tackle misogyny.... great

This. Whatever I think of sex-selective abortion, Labour is proposing to deny women information about their own bodies 'for their own good'.

trippingoverrainbows · 17/09/2018 11:54

I don't understand how banning those paying privately for NIPT from finding out the sex of their child early will reduce sex selective abortions.

If you were so minded to abort depending on sex you'd just wait until 16 weeks and pay for a private ultrasound to find out. This is still safely within the current abortion time limits. I doubt having a more traumatic termination would discourage someone that is willing to terminate based on sex anyway 🤷‍♀️

Juells · 17/09/2018 11:55

the mother either has autonomy over her body or she doesn't.

The complicating factor is that the choice to abort female babies is because of misogyny. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, and can't criticise people on either side of the debate.

FloralBunting · 17/09/2018 12:01

Genuinely not understanding that. Aborting because of misogyny is wrong. But aborting because of poverty is ok?

Juells · 17/09/2018 12:11

I don't get what you don't get about it. To abort girls because the culture places no value on women is sickening. It comes from the same place as violence against women, beating up women. That's why it feels wrong. How is that the same as a woman who is desperately poor and doesn't know how she'll survive if she has another child?

R0wantrees · 17/09/2018 12:21

People are challenging the BBC with regards their reporting of this and BBC's use of gender rather than sex.

Its a significant challenge and if the BBC is forced to consider how it uses the terms sex and gender in this case, it could have wider significance.

I’m firmly pro-choice but...
BarrackerBarmer · 17/09/2018 12:26

Because you are still advocating forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy and birth she doesn't want.

You cannot fix a social injustice by enslaving women's reproductive systems to a cause.

What would you say to the woman - the adult who you are withholding HER OWN information from? You're not responsible enough to make decisions about your own body? Sorry love, you have to have this baby, we've decided for you? It's your social duty to bear female children? The burden for changing misogyny lies with you and your uterus, and you don't get a say? What?

Women are not breeding stock. You will not make a more equal society by enslaving women and their reproductive functions further than they already are. You can't free a woman from misogyny by subordinating her to a different master.

NataliaOsipova · 17/09/2018 12:29

To abort girls because the culture places no value on women is sickening

Yes it is. But it still doesn't override any individual woman's right to determine what happens in her own uterus. Whether we find it sickening or not.

BarrackerBarmer · 17/09/2018 12:31

And if Sophie Walker believes that women should be denied information about their own pregnancies because the poor dears can't be trusted to make good decisions about them, she can fuck right off.

Yes, they got sex and gender mixed up, we know. But Sophie appears to be advocating further oppression of a SEX right there in that tweet.

I knew the karyotype of both my children in the second trimester. That someone might think they had the right to redact the sex chromosome data from that information about my own pregnancy enrages me.

Fucks sake. Why don't people spend 5 minutes thinking things through?

littlbrowndog · 17/09/2018 12:32

But what if the woman is physically forced into having the test and then forced into having an abortion of test says it’s a girl

NotBadConsidering · 17/09/2018 12:33

People are challenging the BBC with regards their reporting of this and BBC's use of gender rather than sex.

The Guardian link of the Press Association article I posted on page one has definitely been changed. Someone finally doing some editing. It’s a start I suppose...

BarrackerBarmer · 17/09/2018 12:33

We're proposing criminalising KNOWLEDGE here.

NataliaOsipova · 17/09/2018 12:35

But what if the woman is physically forced into having the test and then forced into having an abortion of test says it’s a girl

Then that's clearly also a breach of her rights to bodily autonomy.

ErrolTheDragon · 17/09/2018 12:36

Many of the reasons women 'choose' abortion are sickening. Rape, sex selection. Poverty isn't exactly nice... especially if it's because of the father avoiding responsibility.

placemats · 17/09/2018 12:37

Absolutely Barracker

Also proposing targeting women deemed 'at risk' of having a Down's Syndrome baby, when it occurs in all age groups of women who are able to get pregnant, and just just those who do so at a later age.

placemats · 17/09/2018 12:39

Abortion is a lifestyle choice though just as using contraception is.

It seems to me that contraception is now deemed to be no longer a choice to make but part of being a woman.