Sex selective abortions

[midgetastic]

It seems the Scottish government have been advised to allow abortion on the grounds of sex - will they really go through with such a dreadful policy ? What am I missing?

I increasingly don’t understand Scotland. First Nicola and the mixed sex prisons and now this.

Oh so the Scottish government do know what sex is then?

They should allow them.

A child shouldn't have to face being born to parents who would have thrown them away for their sex. They'd probably face abuse if they lived.

They should give the abortion, then sterilise the parents at the same time, as they should never be allowed the care of a vulnerable child.

Is it liberals who want to abort boy childs?

That is a rage bait headline from GB News. The actual story is that the body undertaking the review of abortion laws in Scotland rejected an explicit ban on sex based abortions because "women should have the right to make their own reproductive choices and are best placed to make pregnancy decisions based on their personal circumstances".

What is being proposed is that women should not need to give any reason why they want an abortion. That is very different to the current law in place in Scotland which is archaic compared to England.

Highly doubtful, it's historically been female fetuses that have been targeted due to the patriarchal nature of popular cultures and societies.

The proposal is to make abortion legal without the woman needing give a reason (up to 24 weeks). This would basically be formalising the current situation where at the moment Drs just go through the motions of authorising the requested abortion based on one of the allowed criteria (98% are carried out under the criteria of continuing the pregnancy being more of a risk to the woman’s mental or physical health).

Abortions on the basis of sex would be allowed in the sense that they wouldn’t be explicitly banned (probably because banning them would be a waste of time when you can find out the sex of your baby at 6 weeks with an at home blood test that the NHS has no way of knowing about). The proposal isn’t that is be added to the current list of legally allowable reasons to have an abortion.

This is the case in Ireland where abortion is available on request with no need to give a reason (in Ireland it’s up to 12 weeks).

Abortions laws in Scotland are the same as England and Wales I think? The abortion act 1967 is what they come under in all countries. Two doctors must agree that the abortion can be carried out for one of the listed reasons.

So they will allow sex selection because they can’t see how to prevent it ?

it wasn’t GB news I heard it from btw

Sex selective abortions are de facto allowed anywhere abortion is allowed, and rightly so. You shouldn’t have to give a reason why you are terminating a pregnancy, it should be available on demand, no questions.

You are either anti forced birth or you’re not. Caveats like “but you can’t abort for reason X” serve absolutely no one.

From a practical point of view, what should they do instead?

Out of genuine interest, what would you change the abortion laws in this country to (if you would change them)?

Personally, I would change it to women not having to justify their request for an abortion. This is basically the current situation - I had an abortion at 6 weeks, never spoke to the two drs who had to sign it off, it’s pointless nonsense to have the law be that abortion is illegal unless we think a woman has given us a good enough reason (but actually we don’t really ask anyway).

I don’t think it is in anyone’s benefit to force a woman to have a baby she does not want, whatever the reason.
If sex selective abortions are an issue, tackle the reasons for that separately, because the problem is not remotely solved by someone having a baby girl they do not want.

What’s the pro-choice argument against this?

Having an abortion because of the sex of a child - no I can’t get behind that.

I am not sure I can get behind “whatever you want whenever you want it “ either.

striving to save a babies life or striving to kill it at the same age ? Just because one person says so ? I can see that’s very hard on those who have to implement the abortion.

i guess I find it hard to accept abortion months after the woman knew she was pregnant. It’s not just her body. Once the child becomes viable outside of her body it’s two bodies

No one is getting behind sex selective abortion.

And the law being proposed in Scotland would be up to 24 weeks (just like the current law allows abortion for the specific reasons up to 24 weeks), currently over 80% of abortions of done before 10 weeks and I don’t see why that would change. Less than 1% are done over 24 weeks and those are all for medical reasons - there is no suggestion of that part changing.

What’s galling is that it won’t be boys being terminated.

Activists want to remove sex as a legal concept, so this is an obvious place to start.

So do you believe that women should both need to justify and give evidence of her reasons to have an abortion? And be denied one if there is suspicion that her reasons might be morally wrong (such as sex selection).

Or... which seems to be the case here... allow women to access abortion free of judgement, even though you might not think the reasoning is morally sound?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5444747-sex-selective-abortion-snp-review-of-scottish-law

Discussed on here, with links to the relevant review, etc

Well, as uncomfortable as it might make us feel, we cannot back a woman’s right to choose then put a caveat on that.
It cannot be ok to tell a woman she can have an abortion simply because she does not feel ready to be a mother yet deny it to a woman who feels she does not want a 3rd/4th son or daughter.

I don’t like it and it wouldn’t be for me but it’s not my choice. The entire premise of ‘pro choice’ is that the only person who gets to make the decision is the woman herself. So it’s a hill I’m prepared to die on.

Unborn children is either just some flotsam and jetsam, in which case abortions are no more meaningful than taking a poo. Or it's a person with human rights, in which case abortion should be banned unless the mother's life is in danger.

These are the only two coherent positions.

I agree.

For me personally, I cannot say “women should have the right to choose for their body, oh but actually only if I think their reason is acceptable”.

That doesn’t mean I personally think it’s reasonable to say “I want a baby but only a boy”. (Although my bigger concern would be for the unwanted girl her mother would be forced to carry)

Some people would have said my reason for having an abortion wasn’t acceptable - I was married, we had a child, we could have afforded another at that time, in fact we did want (and went on to have) a second child, but I was just coming out of pretty bad PND with DD1 and everything, including DH’s company, had just shut down for Covid. But ultimately my reason was “don’t want one right now”. Thankfully despite the law being pretty strict written down, it was easy to get without having to argue or justify. But plenty of people wouldn’t like it, and would seek to stop it on the grounds of it not being a reason they consider “good enough”. I don’t think they should get to make that call and draw that line for me, so it would be hypocritical of me to try and draw that line for others.

I feel its either ok to have abortions or its not so the reason doesnt matter.

I can see a caveat that some people feel its only ok to save the mothers life so for that group reason does matter.

It’s not viable though. Not in the sense of being able to survive outside a woman’s body. Surely you can have an abortion for whatever reason?

Are you an MRA?

Interesting choice of username, American Psycho.